I’ll be brief. I’m obsessed with games – all games. Campers constantly ask about my console of choice and I cannot give a satisfactory answer. I love all of the consoles. And the PC. And the Mac. And the iPhone / iPad. I don’t have an Android device, but I love Linux and that’s pretty close.
Anyway, I attend a conference every year called “Games for Change,” where professional designers, educators, programmers and more all gather together to figure out how to educate (and other things) better using games. This past year, Gabe Newell gave a talk about using Valve software in education – particularly centered around a game called “Portal 2.”
After the talk, I met with Gabe and talked with him about – no joke – iD Tech Camps. One of our most popular outdoor games is “Outdoor Left 4 Dead,” inspired by one of Valves best-selling franchises. He said that he’d love to play! Perhaps we can get him at iD as a zombie this summer?
ANYWAY, Portal 2 is an incredible game and a perfect way to learn level design and develop critical thinking skills. And it happens to be the subject of a one of our new courses – 3D Game Modding. But the most important part of this post is that the STEAM THANKSGIVING SALE is happening RIGHT NOW (please forgive the caps, this is important!). From the timestamp on this very post, you have roughly 15 hours left to buy Portal 2 for $10. For a little more than $11, you can get the original Portal as well!
So don’t just sit there – buy the game now! And, when you realize how amazing it is (perhaps one of the top ten games of the last decade), sign up for 3D Game Modding. You won’t regret it.
Hey all – your friendly, neighborhood (the other) Pete here with another mildly rant-like contribution.
BUT FIRST – Acknowledgements / Shout Outs / Big Ups to Ryan who is going going crazy-awesome with content development! It’s great. I love it. Keep it up!
SomethingAwful (an old Internet community that uses profane language to express their points, so no link for you!) recently published a well-read article called, “I’m Begging You, World, Shut Up About Angry Birds.” The article started similarly to mine, with an upcoming rant confession turned apology, followed by how awful the Angry Birds phenomenon is – mainly because it’s been popular for so long and everyone should move on. A similar, less-read article was posted months before on The Yorker called “It’s Time to Stop Talking about Angry Birds,” which appears to contain family appropriate language and focuses strictly on the gameplay, not the cultural phenomenon. Countering both arguments, although addressing little of the same points, Gamespot posted “It’s Time to Stop Ignoring Angry Birds,” an article that calls out some of the great achievements the game has had so far – claiming in conclusion that, “This game will sell more copies than any video game ever made before it is forgotten, and it will shatter every perception of what a video game can do” – a pretty lofty expectation, although likely true.
I’m taking a fairly different stance – it’s awesome that everyone, including your grandmother, knows about Angry Birds. Computer gaming to non-gamers used to simply be Solitaire or Minesweeper, while console gaming was Mario. This over-simplification led to too many insulting encounters preaching the uselessness of games. Parents, teachers, even strangers would take arms against the childishness of console gaming or the non-stimulating nature of computer games. It was easy to put all of gaming into a single category as useless and a waste of time, a low form of entertainment for the young and easily amused. Violent video games only made matters worse - their loud graphic disturbances scared mature adults away from the living room and made games into an enemy rather than simply a time waste.
Video games became part of a generational divide – something that kids got and parents loathed. They opened a hole in communication and undoubtedly caused unnecessary friction between two sides that had no common ground.
Gamers (and iD Tech) know the truth. While there are many waste-worthy titles in the gaming landscape, hundreds of quality titles exist across all platforms – artistic masterpieces that challenge the mind and body in ways that cannot be achieved in any other media. The New York Times recently reviewed Uncharted 3 with such praise as, “From its engaging, heartfelt script and character performances to its meticulous pacing, dramatic cinematography and lush visual production, Uncharted 3 is mass-market interactive entertainment of the highest order.” The article scatters throughout the idea that Uncharted 3 is on par with a major motion picture – or even beyond one. But I’m not here to defend the honor of video games – it’s likely that you’re already a believer(!)
Angry Birds is a conversation between the gamers and the non-gamers. It’s an agreement that games can be worthwhile – even as something that’s basically goofy in spirit and design. Angry Birds goes beyond Minesweeper and Solitaire, as there is a strong narrative. It goes beyond Mario because the gameplay is accessible and understandable – a physics game is easier to grasp than a two dimensional platformer with magical mushrooms! The more that Grandma understands about Angry Birds, the better she’ll be at appreciating the value of Game Design I or II for the iPad and iPhone or even Android. Adults that start with Angry Birds may be more prepared to experiment with other forms of gaming, like amazing puzzle-game Portal 2 (and subsequent student mods).
Let Angry Birds be the bridge to comprehension. Allow everyone to talk about it, buy stuffed birds, and reenact it – none of those activities hurt gamers. Remember, non-gamers have to talk about *something*, they might as well talk about something that mildly resembles a modern game, particularly if it helps broaden their gaming horizons.
In the movie world, sequels are often met with lukewarm, “meh” reactions, as so many have failed to live up to the potential established by their predecessors. But when it comes to gaming, that sentiment is flipped on its head, with sequels often delivering as much excitement as first installments, adding a load of additional bells and whistles to boot.
One of the year’s most anticipated new video game releases, ‘Batman: Arkham City’ will most likely continue the trend of video game sequels that pack more than a punch.
Photo courtesy of GamesRadar.com
In ‘City,’ a host of new villains join the Joker (voiced by Mark Hamill) and the Riddler, including Two Face, the Penguin, and other classic Batman characters. And, besides playing as the “Caped Crusader,” players will have a chance to navigate the game’s landscape as Catwoman, and even trusty sidekick Robin.
Video game development is provided Rocksteady Studios, a British developer based in London. Rocksteady opted to stick with its successful formula, creating ‘City’ as an open world, action-adventure game where players can direct Batsy all around town with stealthy tactics – of course, all while collecting and using famous Batman gadgets on the way to saving Catwoman and securing Gotham’s safety.
Photo courtesy of G4TV.com
The game will release Tuesday, October 18th for play on the Xbox 360 and PS3, as well as on Microsoft Windows and cloud gaming platform Onlive.
All in all, the game promises to be bigger and better – hard to believe considering the success of 2009’s ‘Arkham Asylum,’ but a refreshing statement for those looking for elevated, high-flying gameplay.
There was a time when I didn’t have the absurd game catalog that I sport today. I’m not bragging – I would quickly give up my library for more time to spend with some quality titles. The problem with getting older is that games become more affordable and free time becomes less available. I hate to admit that I’ve never finished “Mass Effect” because every time I sit down to play, I get sidetracked with something seemingly more important, like work, family or sleep. The majority of my gaming is portable, predominantly iPhone and iPad, simply because of convenience. I do steal some late night sessions with my Xbox or PS3, but I have to limit those experiences to quick interactions such as “Super Meat Boy,” “Zen Pinball” or the occasional “Battlefield 1943.”My childhood was littered, though, with constant gaming for lack of other things that interested me or my friends. Sure, we’d go out and play, but time moved slower and there was always a couple of hours available to pop a game in the Atari, Coleco, NES or Genesis (or PC!), regardless of how awful the gameplay turned out to be. My menu of options was quite limited back then, which meant that sometimes I would become quite obsessed with games that were simply awful. Here are ten of my favorite horrible games – please include yours in the comments!
Yes, I realize that Pitfall II was a groundbreaking game for the Atari and platform games in general. This also happened to be the very first game that I beat, at the tender age of 5, in fact! The game, though, required ridiculous patience. Identifying the single ledge that had a special jump that triggered a balloon was enough to make anyone mad with rage. Follow that with the final climb through bats and vultures and bats and vultures (again and again and again), any mistake in timing resulting in falling all the way to the bottom was infuriating. The only true positive from beating Pitfall II as a child is that Super Meat Boy does not really phase me… at all.
Swordquest was some sort of contest game – there were clues that inside the game needed to solve a real world puzzle. I never knew that. I just played this game (and the other Swordquest) again and again without any purpose. There was no save, so I just thought that I was running from room to room collecting items that would eventually bring about a grand end-state. Instead, hours of my life were spent running around with the notion that a purpose would present itself – and it never did.
The music from the Smurfs game still haunts my nightmares. Yes, I did rescue a couple of Smurfs from Gargamel, but most of the time I was cursing out the screen because of the mind numbingly impossible jumps (which was difficult, because at the time I didn’t know any curses)! The game was so frustrating that I eventually decided that if the Smurfs cannot in a world of fences or bushes, they do not deserve to be saved.
Fly a plane through some hazards and unlock a door – that’s fairly easy, right? Now fly through the inside of some wacky building with pipes and water hazards – still not bad. Now try to make it to the end without getting hit by a giant bouncing ball… Yeah. Looping is an incredibly bizarre joystick and shooting game that defies reality and rides the fine line of too difficult and satisfyingly successful. The music is great, but the premise is so overwhelming weird that it falls under the “what the heck did I just spend 3 hours playing?” category. I can imagine a 2012 sequel could put sense the insanity, but for now, I’m still scratching my head.
I do not even want to write about Bayou Billy. I was terrible at this game! I know that’s an unfair way to judge a game, but the only was I got past the first level or two was with Game Genie – and that went for all of my friends as well. I think I made it to first on-rails shooting level only a couple of times without completely dying. Yet I kept trying, day after day, because I really had no other option.
In the late 80’s, MTV had a game show that was actually based on music. I loved the show because it didn’t involve music videos, which I was too young to enjoy, and contained PG-13 level humor, which I was too young to understand. Somehow I was given the NES version of the show, which I played over and over again until I memorized all of the questions – otherwise, how would I know ANYTHING about Jon Bon Jovi? The game wasn’t broken, except that a 9 year old could easily win if he or she happened to play for more than 10 – 20 hours a week. I showed them!
This game is impossible. There’s no other way to describe the mildly entertaining Olympic-like exploits of these cartoony cavemen. Young gamers may know some Wii games that are merely based on shaking the controller endlessly – this was an early variation that required the player to repeatedly hit the “a” or “b” button at a machine-like pace. We bought a “turbo” (read *cheat*) controller specifically for this game and it made it much more interesting. My hands still hurt from the pre-turbo days.
I actually still love this game – it’s a series of mini-games where the Three Stooges try to accumulate the most amount of money to save the orphanage (?) or something noble like that. Perhaps they were kicked out of their house or grandma was dying – I do not recall and I’m much too busy to Google right now. The games were interesting and scattered throughout was real-life digital voice sound effects, which was novel outside of “Blade of Steel.” I included this because the whole game was fairly mindless and it distracted me from replaying the first 3 minutes of “The Adventures of Bayou Billy.”
This game looked great. At the time, Chester Cheetah was one of the sharpest looking cartoon-like games out there. The game even had a cool platform twist, which was that Chester would be invincible whenever he was dancing. Unfortunately, the designers saw fit to use that skill against Chester as often as possible. One level includes some fast-action boat platforming on the high seas – every move must be perfect or splash! Toward the end, almost unavoidable, is a nice dancing power-up that changes the music and sends Chester right into the water. Oh – did I mention this game is based on a character from a bag of cheese-covered junk food? Yeah. Gross.
I know it is unfair to (again) judge a game simply on how difficult each level is, but this is my blog entry and I’ll do what I want. Aero was so horribly hard that I could not fathom how someone could find any enjoyment from loading up the cartridge. I’m pretty sure I never got past the flaming ring in the first level. The *first* level. Yeah. I have no idea what the rest of the game looks like or if the “Sabre Dance” continues over and over again, nor will I ever find out. I prefer to live with the understanding that the game was an impossible hoax without any subsequent story or challenges…
Hey all, your friendly neighborhood (the other) Pete here with another iD Tech Camp exclusive – an interview with the creator of “The Adventures of Timmy: Run Kitty, Run!”, an upcoming title for the iPhone.
I was really interested in how a game is made outside of the computer lab – from the idea; to gathering a team; to pouring your talents into something you love. My favorite course at iD Tech Camp is Game Creation: Arcade & Platform because I love Super Mario Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog and LittleBigPlanet (as well as Terraria!) There is so much you can do with a 2D game and I’ve never seen two iD game projects created in Multimedia Fusion that are the same. Anyway, I hope that this interview inspires everyone to follow their passion and create something awesome!
There is no such thing as an educational game. Wait, that’s wrong. What I mean to say is that Every game is an educational game. Even Farmville. The question is not, “Can people learn from games?” but instead, “What do people learn from games?”
And it turns out, I have a lot of answers to that question.
Field Games for Change
I recently attended the Games for Change conference in New York. Researchers, educators and designers talked up games as the secret sauce to engage 21st century learners and save our educational system (as well as tons of other incredible aspirations). For the most part, however, the topic was screen-based video games. Board games can’t change people? How about sports or field games?
My training in outdoor activities is largely influenced by the experiential and adventure education movement. Outward Bound and Project Adventure, among many other organizations, use group games as a way to teach problem solving, collaboration, team work, trust and character development. I bring games to iD that encourage unique and positive social experiences, a tactic that creates a comfortable environment for collaboration and friendships. Some of the games are used to spice up the imaginations of the campers and expose the young designers to new dynamics that can be integrated into project work.
The campers will likely mention “fun” as the main quality of the games, but I include that as a prerequisite for all “games.”
Another type of game that occurs at iD that is not necessarily screen-based is iDX. This Colors War variant pits all of the camps in a battle to get the most points by the end of the season. Each camp is placed on one of four teams and campers earn points by completing self-guided activity sheets. These challenges give campers an opportunity to self-organize and take leadership positions while attempting to set world records on Record Setter (formerly URDB). I believe that iD Tech as a whole has over 60 standing world records, but the summer is only half complete.
Formerly VGC
Every now and then I get to cameo for a week as an iD instructor. My favorite class to teach used to be called “Video Game Creation,” now is called “Game Creation – Arcade & Platform.” I also taught “Adventures in Game Design” which has similar content aimed at a younger audience. These are really core classes of iD Tech – classes that have been sell-out landmarks for over a decade. Anyone that has taught these classes would readily agree that learning how to create a game helps teach essential universal concepts that everyone needs.
My campers would start with a plan.
We turned off the screens and brainstormed about what kind of games to create. What is the story? Who are the characters? Why is this fun? The young designers would sketch out the project early on, so they could continue to refine it over the week and leave with a blueprint for further development.
My campers had to learn about UI.
The user interface of most computer programs, from the way that drop down menu items work to learning about icons and how to find exactly what they do, is based on universal conventions – meaning that if a user can master Adobe Photoshop, then they can figure out how to use with a novice proficiency any other piece of software. I had campers that could not confidently read, yet could manipulate Photoshop and Fusion without a single issue.
My campers learned about coding.
Neither class I taught contained any true coding, only action and reaction statements that are made in a graphical and easy to comprehend way. The campers did, though, learn about the fundamentals of creating a program, particularly that someone had to create every little aspect of their favorite games. Campers from iD leave looking at games in a whole new way, possibly encouraging them to further explore more complex systems.
My campers learned about story.
I would constantly ask my game creators what the story was – “What are you trying to tell?” I’m sure they got sick of it! The outcome, however, was that instead of simply making something that was “cool,” the campers were able to relate a comprehensive narrative that slowly built to a climax and had a conclusion.
There are many other abstract ideas that my campers encountered, whether creating art assets, learning how to use a camera or tablet, creating a linear storyboard, or collaborating over a large group project, as well as any camper that happened to be lucky enough to take a course at iD Tech.
Good for Gaming
I sat through the Games for Change conference listening to people that desperately want to integrate gaming into curriculums and had to smile. I am lucky enough to serve a summer camp (that still has last-minute camp openings for July and August sessions!) that has understood the power of gaming (whether on the screen, table or field) for over 10 years! iD Tech doesn’t treat gaming as simply a frivolous time waster, nor needs to use gaming as an engagement trick. Games are like a shared language that the iD audience speaks; and through this communication method, we are able to give our campers tremendous learning opportunities for life.
While peers play games, 6th grader creates them in summer camp
By Anna Schuman
Northpointe Intermediate student Gabe Shah is creating a 15-level multi-player Mario computer game in his iD Tech camp.
When Gabe Shah returns to school in August, his friends might tell stories of places they visited in the summer, of sites they’ve seen, of games they’ve played, but few can say they have done what the 11-year-old has.
The soon-to-be sixth grader at Northpointe Intermediate said he wishes he could spend all day every day at iD Tech Camp, held at the University of Houston. In just a few days, he has learned to create, and has completed, his very own 15-level, multiplayer “Mario” computer game.
An avid game player, Shah has had his sights set on becoming a game maker and working for Jagex Games, an independent game publisher and developer based in England. He, like many of his peers, was already familiar with playing games, but now he knows how to make them as well.
Creating games, he said, takes a lot of creativity. He was given few guidelines about the type of game to create, so most of it is straight from his imagination. Not only do he and his fellow campers leave at the end of the week knowing they were able to create something, they get to take their game home with them.
“It’d really be cool if my friends could play my game, and think it’s really cool, then they can ask where I got it and I can say I made it,” he said. “I’m the only one who can say they’ve made their own game.”
Students like Shah, ranging in age from 7 to 18, can participate in iD Tech’s gaming, film and programming camps nationwide. Some students travel across the country to go to the camps, others from across the world.
Anela Wenger, the camp director at U of H, said one of Shah’s fellow campers flew in from Japan for two weeks to participate in the camp in Houston. Wenger said she believes the popularity, though Houston is one of the smaller camps, is due to the program’s reputation.
“Some people might be skeptical to send their kids to a camp where they play video games all day,” she said. “Yeah, they do play games, but here they create the games.”
An educator by profession, Wenger said she is amazed by the focus the campers have when they start their projects. When they are doing other camp activities, indoors and outdoors, and even during lunch, campers ask if they can go back to work on their projects.
There’s more to what the campers learn than just how to program computers, design and create games, she said. They also learn great problem-solving skills through the medium of game creation.
Shah plans to return to the camp each year, taking different classes at different levels, learning everything he can, and hopes to one day be among the college and graduate students who teach the camp classes.
He said people might think of people who love computers as nerdy, but he wants people to remember how Bill Gates got his start, and said he and future campers might be among the next Albert Einsteins and Bill Gates’ of the world. Until then, he plans to spread the word about his favorite camp and the importance of computers to everyone.
“They always say reading, writing and math are what you need to know, but I think everyone should know computers these days,” he said. “Kids don’t have to love computers to come to this camp, but I bet they will when they leave.”
Share the Experience
iD Tech Camps run at the University of Houston through July 24. For more information or to reserve your spot, go to www.internalDrive.com.
Expertise: Photoshop, Illustrator & Graphic Design, Prairie Dogs, Corn, Driving Tractors, Moonwalking, and Guessing the Quantity of Random Objects in A Jar
