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Of course, there's always time for one more game of Gaga Ball...

Lee on Computer Games

This is Lee.  I am posting on this blog for the first time, and I am super excited!  I am going to tell you about video games we have been using in our class.  One online game I would suggest is Gamestar Mechanic!  It is all about learning to build computer games, and you can play games that others have built. You can build educational games, skill games, or even games with riddles!  You can edit your avatar’s speed and health, and an enemy’s speed, damage, health, movements, and possibly rate of fire and jumping!  It has been useful in our class because we could make projects with it.  You can build games with text and a story, or just to be a challenge!  

Here are some of my sample games:

The first game is just for a short challenge:

Cavern of Stars

These two games show people the basics of gamestar mechanic controls:

Game for New Players 1

Game for New Players 2

This game is to show that backgrounds are important in games.  For example, if you play without a background, this game looks simple.  But with a background, there is an illusion.  (Press z or m to go into a portal (yellow side) and come out the other end (gray side).)

Light and Shadow

Here are some Farm to Table games from the start of the year: 

Laurea's Farm to Table game

Lee's Farm to Table game

Next is a game that I made in math class, about a game we were studying called Nim.  We were studying it because it shows how binary works, in a simple way.  Each player can take 1, 2, or 3 sticks at a time and whoever takes the last stick wins or loses. (Predetermined at the start)  

You play with 20 sticks and take turns.  If you go first and pick the right number of sticks sticks you always win.  
First turn: pick 3.  
All other turns: If your opponent chose 2, take 2, chose 1, take 3, chose 3, take 1.  

If you do this, you will always win, because when either player is at 5 sticks, the player who’s turn it is loses.  You can force your opponent down to five sticks if it is their turn with nine, down to nine if it is their turn with 13, and down to 13 if it is their turn with 17.

Here is a version of Nim that I made with Gamestar Mechanic. To make your selection, press Z.

Nim

I hope you like these games, and maybe even get an account!  

And speaking of games, I think that since Electrocity and Garbage Dreams are allowed in our class, I will tell you about them.  

Electrocity is all about running an energy- efficient and populous city and after 150 “turns”, you are graded on how well you ran your city.  You start with $400 and a population of 10,000.  You start with a small wind farm powering your electricity. If you go bankrupt or have a population of less than 1000 people, you lose.  I have a high score of  85%, or “A-”  if you just continually press “next turn”, (And always buy the power shortfall), you end up with 68 points, or a “B”  This was relevant to Global Citizenship because it is all about running a town.

Garbage dreams is all about recycling.  You get a pile of trash and recyclables and have to recycle and throw away the items that you find.  The recyclables need to be sorted into organics, paper, aluminum, tin, glass, and plastics.  You start with paper, organics, and $150.  You can expand your garbage empire, but you only have 8 “months” (turns).  The goal is to get as high of a percentage of recycling as possible. My high score is 13%.  You lose if you go bankrupt.  It is related to Global Citizenship because we were studying the great garbage patch, and pollution in general.

Quality Global Citizenship online games

While varied, entertaining, and delightful, we have a general policy that excludes computer games from our classroom. With rare exception, the educational value of most games is overshadowed by other opportunities offered by the classroom. Most online games (especially those with educational value) tend to be fairly solitary, so the feeling is that they're best left for home. 

However, occasionally we come across some gems that line up nicely with what we're studying. Here are two games that I've introduced to the class that not only reinforce a lot of what we've been studying this month, but are also challenging and a lot of fun. (They're also free!)  

Garbage Dreams

Garbage Dreams is a game developed as a tie-in to a documentary of the same name. The film chronicles the lives of three teenagers in Cairo who make their living recycling the trash of others. The game tasks the player with matching their impressive recycling rate: They are able to recycle 80% of the trash that they collect. The player has to use limited resources to turn a profit, then use that money wisely to invest in better technology. In the process of playing, you learn quite a bit about what can and cannot be recycled and why. Investing resources in different technologies allows you to recycle more items, which (ideally) justifies the expense. It effectively illustrates that recycling is not makes ecological sense, but economic sense as well. 

Also, you get to feed old sandwiches and banana peels to a cartoon goat. 

It's fun and informative! 

Play Garbage Dreams

Some more background on Garbage Dreams can be found here. 

ElectroCity

ElectroCity challenges the player to take a small sleepy town on a resource-rich patch of land and develop it sustainably and responsibly. You are given numerous opportunities to balance short term gains with longterm growth. For example, clear cutting a forest may yield some much needed cash, but turning it into a national forest may be a better course for longterm success. It's an extremely open-ended game that allows the player to experience the pros and cons of a number of real world conundrums. 

Play ElectroCity