All Aboard the Nerd Boat

Forbes is running an article detailing a most unusual cruise. 180 Computer Science profs were brought together on a Royal Carribean ship to talk about bringing computer games to the classroom. Despite the topic, there was a lot of serious discussion. From the article: "After Microsoft's Luehmann praised the technical sophistication of three new Xbox 360 games (Mass Effect, Too Human, and Gears of War), a silver-haired professor raised his hand and commented: 'You just showed us three very sophisticated and very violent games, and I'm sure they're good for something--though I don't really know what that is--but what I want to know is, when will you make a videogame that's really useful? When will you make a videogame that's going to teach my students chemistry?'"

Comments

Whoa, know what? McGyver!

[Vo0k]

That's one helluva idea for a game.
McGyver style.
The new engines would finally allow for that level of sophistication.
Create a database of 1000-2000 different chemical reactions, then give objects besides the standard "texture, lightness, weight" properties the property of chemical composition. Give player a lab to prepare stuff. Then let them loose on missions, using at first simple stuff like black powder, later play with transporting a canister of nitroglicerine across Manhattan in public transport, then do more advanced stuff, fill a building with hydrogen-oxygen mix, smuggle dissolved gold in fuel tanks, etc, all the cool stuff you can do with chemistry. :)

Cool!