Giddy

Daniel helped me with my class idea this weekend, because he cannot help but share his awesomeness. Here is part of the class I'm excited to implement:

LEVELING UP

Students love video games and part of the reason is they get constant, tangible feedback and rewards- things that they want. I would like to incorporate this into class, so in addition to their graded assignment students will receive incentives to work and learn through leveling up. The leveling up effects their avatar (physical representation of themselves perhaps heroic, villainous, beautiful or monstrous). These avatars will progress as they do and be hung in class as incentive and reinforcement.

When students complete different types of goals their avatar could gain a different costume or physical attribute, an additional upgrade to the power, or gadget or prop based on the type of goal they accomplished These goals and rewards will be posted in the classroom and split into three categories, influence (teamwork and citizenship goals), power (work related), and ingenuity (creatively based, or for work outside of class). These rewards come for specific activities or assignments as well as behavioral, intellectual, and social tasks; some of examples of these include:

INFLUENCE (effects the appearance of their avatar)

+ Show me positive feedback from another class

+ Be a team leader

+ Help a classmate with a task

+ Include a family member in your work

+ Be honest

+ Make me laugh

+ Work for someone else

+ Respond thoughtfully and meaningfully in class

+ Present to the class

+Teach a skill

+ Encourage someone who is blocked or having trouble

POWER (increases existing powers or adds additional powers or physical attribute)

+ Find secret in a text or game

+ Find an example or application of what we did in class outside of class or in another class

+ Wow me with a thought, idea, assignment, sketch, piece of work

+ Start an idea

+ Come to class prepared and on time

+Have assignments completed by deadline

+ Your team has assignments done by deadline

+ Get an A or B in another class, or in work for this one

INGENUITY (gives their avatar gadgets, pets or props)

+ Research

+ Bring and share inspiration or derivational work

+ Solve a problem you or your team have struggled with

+ Find multiple solutions or possibilities for one task

+ Edit and revise your work in a meaningful way

+ Scrap an idea and start all over

+ Fail and fix it

+ Raise your grade

Along with their visual representation will come a title for their level.

Visible Gays post on Gameful.org

I started a group on Gameful.org; this is the start of one of our discussions:

• There are a good number of queer folks, but many times they are invisible. How can we encourage or aid video game companies in representing us. I don’t necessarily mean a lesbian as a protagonist, but possibilities in roleplaying games, a gay couple holding hands on the street, NPC’s who are gay and not just comic relief. Games are a very personal experience and as gamers we often play as avatars that aren’t ourselves and that can be helpful and deep if done correctly- it can be a learning experience, a walk in their shoes. Also, showing gay characters in the game world makes them more viable and more acceptable in the real one. Is there a way we can show that to countries and people who are much less accepting or outright violent to gay folks (or those perceived to be gay).

  Also, is there a way games could make gays more visible to their communities, encourage coming out, make the space safer, something to help the community out of their personal hurt and shame, make gay heroic? Connect us.

  Thoughts?

• Nobumatsuku Team said 1 day, 2 hours ago:

  …Actually, that’s kind of funny. I was working on a game with a lesbian protagonist. xD

  But yeah, I totally agree. C: Subtlety is indeed an effective strategy for tolerance, because without realizing it, people will get used to us. They’ll adapt, as all humans do.

  REPLY (0)
• Dean said 5 hours, 55 minutes ago:

  What do you think the barriers are to having this happen? Is it not even thought? Is there fear of controversy?

  I feel sure there re queer people in the industry; I’m surprised there aren’t little bits of gay shoved in the cracks and crevices of a game.

  I’m glad someone is doing a game with a lesbian protagonist, that itself would be a challenge for me. I’m not sure how a lesbian protagonist is different than a protagonist. Perhaps that is why there are stereotypes in media; the “We need to make sure they know this character is queer” mentality. I also think people think they need to write gay characters in some way that is different than straight characters. Gay characters do not view their love or desires as being strange, and I feel like media feels the need to EXPLAIN it or show how beautiful and perfect it is to make it some sort of shining example. I don’t need declarations of love or sex scenes, but little intimate moments between human characters, brushing back a hair, a look of worry, smile, preparing a meal. I guess what games really need is better writing. I don’t know. I mean it is fantasy. I would just really like it if we didn’t always go under the assumption that every character is straight and that it must be PROVEN how straight everyone is. Does sexuality even need to be mentioned in games so much? If I’m killing aliens or saving the kingdom does it matter who I’m sleeping with?

HIStory Lesson

This man is the father of bodybuilding and general hotness; revere him. You must. He is Eugen Sandow. Read up. He is impressive

I Like It

Dragon Age 2 demo. I like it. I want the game. I want it now.

The Big Show

I've been working on these video games classes for years and Friday my principal told me as I passed him in the hallway that I could teach them. Too good to be true? Possibly, I'm still not sure it will happen, but I've been trying to get myself ready anyway- it's hard.

I have had no template for these classes- it's all me. I've read books, played games, listened to podcasts (have you checked out Irrational's; it's awesome); I've whined for years about how it is a great idea and no one will let me do it. Now they're letting me and I'm nervous. AN entire year without a playbook. I've been teaching for thirteen years (the same grade even). I made my own theatre program (very successful by the way), my own lessons, test, projects, but all of them based on English tenements. Now I have to convince the administration (and maybe the district) it's credible, kids that it's fun and requires work and dedication, and parents who think video games are at best distraction and at worst sent by satan to suck out children's tender and tasty brains.

So, deep breath, here I go.

An-Tih-seh-

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is coming to my door tomorrow. I’m excited. Dan and Stephen are coming over Friday to play with me and I will get to be Super SKrull and Phoenix and Ameratsu, or MODOK, or well any of the others (except Tron Bone, she’s icky and stupid, bleh!). The anticipation for games is so much fun, when the potential is limitless and I pretend play them in my head, “My character is going to look like this…First I’m going to…” AWESOME! And, AND! There are so mnay games I am excited about March 8 Dragon Age 2 (mage, baby, mage, and gay love interest, YES), Deus Ex (cyberpunk is so cool and then there were the shirtless protagonist pics in the trailer), L.A. Noire (ROckstar always amazes me and this take place in glamorous Los Angeles, hooray!), Portal 2 in April. Sooooooo much! What are you looking forward to?

Horror Identified (nongay version)

Horror video games was the topic of our last podcast. I had finished Dead Space 2 and still amazed by it. It was no BIoshock, but it was effin cool. There were some amazing moments and some beautiful settings, like 9/10’s of the game was fantastic. I don’t want to give anything away, so I can’t say too much, but the enemy AI was interesting and varied and there were some creatures that made swear internally and grip my controller more tightly whenever they appeared.

My problem was the end where they just covered you in enemies with (what seemed to me) to be random spawn points, why not a door, vent, something, and give us an “opening the vent” sound. Cheap and wasteful. I could have done without the last couple of levels.

Which leads into its other problem; it’s a shooter. I know that the genres are cross pollinating, rpg/ shooter, shooter/ horror, sports/rpg, etc. This is great if you are pulling the best from each and if they serve each other, but I am really tired adding multi-player to every game (don’t ever want to play it), or making everything a first person shooter. I’ve got a penis. It is quite serviceable. I do not need phallicism and projectiles in every effin game.

WHAT I THINK HORROR GAMES NEED in no particular order

ATMOSPHERE: horror is sensation, it is mood, it is surprise, it’s heightened senses, so give us sound or silence, give us a place that seems real. Alan Wake did this well, and Bioshock was amazing, the place told a story; it was a character.

INIMICAL ENEMIES: Give us something frightening, not gorey, maybe not even physically monstrous. Rule of Rose, Alan Wake, both Bioshocks gave us enemies that maintained some sense of humanity and tragedy, they were not just grotesques. Even in Dead Space you had the Unitoligists, humans dedicated to a religion. The necromorphs maintained some of their humanity too. I think part of the scare is “That could be me” or “I can see who that used to be.” Maybe we can’t fight them. The supernatural is just that- beyond natural, outside of our rules, shotguns shouldn’t work or holy water.

TACTICAL AI: Dead Space 2 did a great job of creating enemies who had differen strategies that seemed to fit with who they were. Bioshock had Splicers who reacted to you and did just run at you. They had a plan and this made them all the more threatening. If we are mobbed we should have to run. It is hardly scary if I am able to take out 40 of them at a time.

STORY and CONNECTION: Give us a protagonist and characters we can care about, not just because they are our girlfriend (stupid girlfriend!) or kid. Give us something to lose that we don’t want to, like in Heavy Rain, multiple protagonists who could fail or even die and the story would continue.

AN END: Poor Issac, if there wasn’t something blocking the tracks, there was a switchbox that needed fixing. I got really tired of constantly succeeding and having it work, but not work. How about it leading to trouble. How about multiple plots? Maybe we follow a serial killer as the through-point, and we play as his potential victims, each different. It would be cool if we weren’t jumping back and forth between them, but instead saving or slaying them. In Dead Space 2 it would have been nice for there to someone else who was trying to survive outside of Issac. In the first Dead Space everyone we meet killed them self or died in 5 seconds of meeting them.

I don’t know how to label these ideas, so I’m just going to keep going. It also doesn’t have to be constantly frenetic. Let there be lulls. Let us soak in the atmosphere and anticipate the scare. Mess with the controls, maybe have us get weaker as the game continues instead of stronger. Our protagonists has been through a lot and injured often; she shouldn’t still be a killing machine. In addition, this will help players learn game mechanics in a safer environment when they have all their powers and make us be more skillful, crafty and scared at the end when we can’t use them anymore.

I would argue all good games connect to us through character, story, atmosphere, so that we play the game for the game not for a score or achievement. Let horror games be horrible not just shocking and loud.

We just recorded PODCAST 7

It should be available on iTunes later in the week  immediately PS (Post Superbowl). It's our take on games in the Horror genre. Until then, here's a picture of Sammy eating grass. Wheeeee!

I can now blog from my phone!

So......rather than a good read, these are going to feel like tweets. How exciting!

An ode to my awesome boyfriend

Baby, I love you more now than ever before. You've got an awesome sense of humor which serves you well because when you smile you're the most beautiful creature on earth. Your kindness has given you the magical ability to look past all of my flaws while still allowing me to have them. Because I am partially damaged goods, I feared your touch for the longest time, but still you touch me and tell me you love me. Your talent blows me away, and your determination and persistence is awe inspiring. I love every minute I spend with you. We both love to talk...and not talk. We could talk or not talk for hours. :) I can't tell you the way I feel because I fumble with words, but I wanted to spend a moment and type this out so you'd know how much you mean to me. Love you, Dave.