End of the Semester - Post 1

IN the business of gaming class we had a play test session for our final. They had to turn in a short paper, but the focus was on games and donuts. One of the students in class - Mack Cameron - has developed a variety of board games in his spare time. So we play tested the Croquet game - actually based on croquet but with some very fun modifications - like being able to send the ball right at another player.  Lots of good violence and scheming was engaged in by all.

We also had a group playing Halo. We had hoped to play the Halo multiplayer beta but of course our wireless in the classroom wouldn't talk to the wireless receiver in the XBox. As the students said - what else is new.

Here are some pics of us having fun..ending up the semester as a pretty tight group that hopefully will do things together next year to make fun games.

More pics are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kgregson/sets/72157624046039808/

PLay games and more games and more games

There's a thread on a mailing list I"m on about helping students have access to old classic games. One interesting suggestion was to get a license with steam as an internet cafe. Another was to get a subscription with GameTap. Both of them have interesting older games. Game Fly subscriptions for the students (like buying a textbook) is another possibility. The conversation turned to lists of games people should be playing.

Here's one list from the Game Career Guide - new, old, Flash, board, card, D&D....an ipmressive list -
http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/668/ask_the_experts_31_games_students_.php

And here's a list of games that seem to have been abandoned by their publishers or their publishers have gone out of business. You might not be able to play the games, but you can use the descriptions and images on these lists to get a sense for what the games included and how they looked.

• Abandonia - http://www.abandonia.com/
  
• Abandon Games - http://abandongames.com/
  

And last but not least by any means is to look for game play videos on youtube and elsewhere on the net. This is especially good for older games that just aren't available anymore (or their consoles aren't available. My students use game play videos now to illustrate the games they're presenting each week rather than bringing in hardware we don't have at school.