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Video Games Assigned as Homework
joestump98 writes "I wish that my teacher had assigned video games as homework. Videogame makers are working on making educational games that are playable. The criteria for a good game, not surpising, kids say is an interesting storyline and unique characters."
You learned about copy protection. You had to buy that damn book (which incidentally came with the software) to find the fifth word on page 544. Grrr.
...this actually looks like a very useful tool. Originally, I was going to write it off as another feel-good kowtowing of the modern world to kids' micro-second attention span, but the article actually makes it sound truly useful, especially the parts where they find it helps Mom and Dad who don't speak English as well as they would like.
I'd even go so far as to say that it can replace a major chunk of "homework" for these kids. Even better, it seems to eat up time normally occupied by traditional video gameplay, which is basically useless (other than purely mindless entertainment). All-in-all, sounds like a good thing.
My sole complaint here is this: the more we try to package learning as entertainment, the less we seem to emphasize that learning for its own sake is fun and interesting. And we also seem to be reinforcing the concept that it has to be FUN in order to be worth doing. Sadly, the world doesn't opperate this way, and I think we're doing a great disservice to kids if we get them thinking that learning has to be somehow immediately entertaining.
I realize this is for younger kids, where we don't have this problem so much, but I want to make sure that at some point, we start reinforcing the notion that learning for knowledge (and problem solving) are their own rewards, and don't have to be wrapped up in some entertainment package to be worth doing.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
"Kids say the key to good software is a compelling story and interesting characters.."
I thought the criteria for a good game was fun gameplay. Storyline and Character Development have their places in game making, but shouldn't be of primary concern unless the game is story-centric. A great storyline is not going to save a game if its not fun. A great game can still be fun with a craptastic or non-existent storyline (Tetris).
If you want great graphics, watch a movie or animation. If you want a great story, read a book. If you want to have fun, play a game. Chris Crawford (Atari and GDC founder), one of the original game developers, discussed this several times with me. I now keep that in mind every time I consider adding a new feature to one of my games. I've never heard of players refusing to play a fun game because the story sucks; so who cares if my game worlds and characters aren't comprable to Fiction writers?
Problem 1:
Load Quake3. Examine some of the textures along the walls. Point out whether or not maps in dm1 use:
- Texture Maps
- Detail Maps
- Bump Maps
- Specular Lighting.
In the case of all four present, determine the formula for determining a pixel color with light magnitudeProblem 2
Load Warcraft 3. Notice the design of some of the landscape. What would be the most effective use of storage for generating map material (e.g the landscape). Exclude objects such as trees since they are objects within the level. Explain why in your reasoning.
- BSP
- Height map.
- Triangluar Mesh.
- Quad Mesh
Some of the high hills in War3 look "boxy", meaning that there aren't enough polygons within the hill. We wish to implement a grid system that also stores a third point between grid points. This point in space will be the basis for creating Bezier curves.Write a program that takes a 100x100 array of height points, and a 100x100 grid of bezier height points, and write a program that creates a 200x200 array of height points. Remember to generate ALL height values.
Part 2: Try tesselating further into a 400x400 array.
Part 3: Render this into the API of your choice (OpenGL, Direct3d). Create a program that tesselates the grid runtime based on the distance to each key point on the grid. Derive your own reasonable equations to determine this.
Extra Credit: You'll notice some "popping" as new vertices are generated. This is because as new vertices are created between height points, the old ones are shifted over. Write a routine based on the previous problem that forms new vertices along the old position, and then morphs to the new position.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Cool. And my teacher(s) did assign games as school work. Oregon Trail was the main one. Got that one in US history class in like the 5th grade. (This was New Mexico, so take that for what it's worth. Not exacly the best trak record for edukashun in NM)
:)
The best thing about Oregon Trail from a teacher's viewpoint is it taught us basically without supervision, we learned to work as a team (had to double-up on the machines), taught us what it was like for them back then, and made me a deadly shot when we needed venison.
Were they as good as the games people have today to play? Yes, IMO, because it was new and exciting, and all the ideas weren't already out there and repeated 50 times.
Sent from your iPad.
Yes, and I know a doctor that learned his trade by playing Operation.
Be afraid.
The criteria for a good game, not surpising, kids say is an interesting storyline and unique characters.
What BS.. one of the most popular games at the moment is Dance Dance Revolution which has no storyline, and the characters are overdone anime types who are there for no reason at all.
A lot of kids are getting fit from playing Dance Dance Revolution, and even a school in Los Angeles bought a DDR machine for Phys Ed class.
Okay, it's not educational, but it's in a school, and the kids love it.
Games do not necessarily need storylines (see almost any multiplayer game) to keep interest. They just need to be addictive. For example, Tetris, DDR, Tetrinet, SimCity.
Talking of which.. anyone remember Sierra's 'Castle of Doctor Brain'? Great educational game, and I even played it a few months ago to bring back the memories!
mogorific carpentry experiments