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Portal On the Booklist At Wabash College

Posted by Soulskill on from the take-that-ebert dept.

jamie passes along this quote from a post by Michael Abbott at The Brainy Gamer: "This year, for the first time, a video game will appear on the syllabus of a course required for all students at Wabash College, where I teach. For me — and for a traditional liberal arts college founded in 1832 — this is a big deal. Alongside Gilgamesh, Aristotle's Politics, John Donne's poetry, Shakespeare's Hamlet, and the Tao Te Ching, freshmen at Wabash will also encounter a video game called Portal. "

6 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. Not quite by cappp · · Score: 2, Informative
    The most obvious problem is addressed near the end of the article

    Deploying a game for an entire cohort to play at the same time requires more problem-solving than you might expect. We ultimately decided that hardware, installation, and licensing issues were complex enough to dissuade us from teaching Portal in all sections of the course this year; so I and a group of eager colleagues will play the game in our sections to work out the kinks. I don't want our first college-wide experience with a game to be plagued with problems.

    So not quite as advertised, but certainly pretty cool nonetheless.

  2. Re:Cliff's Notes by RobertLTux · · Score: 2, Informative

    its already been done
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31uWFlBn-IM

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  3. Re:Cliff's Notes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I'm assuming reading the article is too much to ask of you, correct? He mentions that they're trying to take a multi-disciplinary approach to a certain course, and as such had faculty brainstorm to suggest non-text works that could be used (i.e., movies, music, paintings, etc).

  4. Ooh, change... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Informative

    Oxford: AD1610:

    "In addition to ye Greeke and Latin Classics and learned tomes of divinity and medicine, freshmen shall this year encounter Hamlet the work of a vulgar modern playwrite..."

  5. Re:Other "smart" games? by Colonel+Korn · · Score: 2, Informative

    Any other candidates for a course like this? I thought Braid had some pretty deep storytelling.

    And I thought Braid's storytelling wasn't up to the par seen in my age 13 creative writing class.

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  6. Re:Proprietary by Chaos+Incarnate · · Score: 2, Informative

    TFA implies (though admittedly doesn't seem to outright state) that it's being deployed on the school's hardware, not students'.

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