Humane Games

May 16

As the game progresses, your goal is to gain points, apportion them wisely, and level up. If you start with fewer points and fewer of them in critical stat categories, or choose poorly regarding the skills you decide to level up on, then the game will still be difficult for you. But because you’re playing on the “Straight White Male” setting, gaining points and leveling up will still by default be easier, all other things being equal, than for another player using a higher difficulty setting. (via Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is – Whatever) Hat tip to Ruben.

May 14

“Designers are no longer selling games to people who want to buy them, they are selling their audiences to advertisers. Worse yet, they are using them as an interactive form of muzak, creating a lively backdrop against which the small percentage of people willing to spend money on new quests or in-game trinkets will feel more likely to spend.” Micheal Thomson for Killscreen: Will Work for Fun (via ibogost)

“

A good game—whether it’s a pro football playoff, or a family showdown on the kitchen table—can make you feel, at least for a little while, like your whole life hangs in the balance. This hour of Radiolab, Jad and Robert wonder why we get so invested in something so trivial. What is it about games that make them feel so pivotal?

We hear how a recurring dream about football turned into a real-life lesson for Stephen Dubner, we watch a chessboard turn into a playground where by-the-book moves give way to totally unpredictable possibilities, and we relive a moment where rooting for the underdog makes us rethink what a truly happy ending is.

”

Games - Radiolab

An Interesting Group Work Model

The POGIL model was developed for use in the sciences and has been used successfully in a variety of chemistry courses; in biology, anatomy and physiology, physics, math, computer science, and environmental science; and now in other fields such as education and marketing.

In this model, the instructor functions as a facilitator who’s available to assist the groups. However, instructors do not answer questions that students should be able to figure out for themselves. Rather than answering student questions, instructors opt to ask the group questions that lead them to the answer. Students are assigned roles in this model.

(via notational)

ximena vengoechea: 7 on 7 - team chemistry

ximenavengoechea:

This weekend I went to the annual 7 on 7 conference at the New Museum, an artstech/arthack event pairing artists and technologists and giving them 24 hrs to come up with a project (product, art work, prototype; whichever you’d like/whatever you’d like to call it). The results were shared…

brianlucid:

What if materials could defy gravity, so that we could leave them suspended in mid-air? Jinha Lee’s ZeroN is a physical and digital interaction element that floats and moves in space by computer-controlled magnetic levitation.

bashford:

“ZeroN (by Jinha Lee at MIT Media Lab) is a new physical/digital interaction element that can be levitated and moved freely by computer in a three dimensional space. Both the computer and people can move the ZeroN simultaneously. In doing so, people and computers can physically interact with one another in 3D space. Users are invited to place or move the ZeroN just as they can place any other objects on surfaces. Once levitated, ZeroN’s behavior can be digitally programmed. For example, users can place the sun above physical objects to cast digital shadows, or place a planet that will start revolving based on simulated physical conditions. “

May 13

lifeandcode:

Ladies Learning Code has Learn To Code With Mom workshops.

gamecontroller:

Single-handed wireless Xbox 360 controller, by Ben Heck.

(via mrghosty)

kidsinthehallpics:

TRUST GAME!

(via mylittlenestofvipers)

May 12

“The tragic image of the blues that originated in the Mississippi Delta ignores the competitive and entrepreneurial spirit of the bluesman himself. While it is certainly true that the music was forged in part by the legacy of slavery and the insults of Jim Crow, the iconic image of the lone bluesman traveling the road with a guitar strapped to his back is also a story about innovators seizing on expanded opportunities brought about by the commercial and technological advances of the early 1900s. There was no Delta blues before there were cheap, readily available steel-string guitars. And those guitars, which transformed American culture, were brought to the boondocks by Sears, Roebuck & Co.” “Delta Dawn,” your must-read for the weekend. (via marathonpacks)

May 11

kchayka:

Tiny Tower + Japanese Metabolism + Rem Koolhaas for Kill Screen, by me.

May 10

nprfreshair:

“If you can stand up every 20 minutes — even if you do nothing else — you change how your body responds physiologically.” — Gretchen Reynolds [more exercise and fitness tips here]

(via wilwheaton)

thetinhouse:

In the Zone of Alienation: Tarkovsky as Video Game (via The New York Review of Books)

(via kchayka)

How To Make Text Adventures

detailed how to for Python.

Humane Games

Humane Games are: games for education, games for health, and games for change. They can work either through the play or through the making. This tumblr celebrates Humane Games, and reflective and critical play.

An Interesting Group Work Model

ximena vengoechea: 7 on 7 - team chemistry

How To Make Text Adventures