Games in the Classroom

Description

Games can be a great way to add experiential and playful learning to the humanities classroom by integrating learning objectives with game mechanics. We’ll look at three main ways to integrate games into learning objectives: teaching and debriefing existing games, making games for students to play, and building games with your students. Along the way, we’ll discuss what makes an effective learning game and how integrating games can offer a gentle way to learn from failure while offering the opportunity for exploration, collaboration, and the probing of ideas through new lenses. Participants will engage in “critical play” of several examples of humanities board games, text games, and graphical games and learn simple tools for making games in these genres while building simple games. No programming experience is required or assumed.

Course Software

The games course will take place in a computer lab with all needed software pre-loaded. If you’d like to use your personal computer instead, you are welcome to do so; however, please pre-load the software listed below.

Construct 2: https://www.scirra.com/construct2/releases/r173/download

Inform 7: http://inform7.com/download/

Twine: http://twinery.org/

Unity: http://unity3d.com/unity/download

Course Schedule

Day One: Board Games

Day Two: Interactive Fiction

Day Three: Twine and Hypertext

Day Four: Construct 2 and Procedural Rhetoric

Day Five: Unity and Beyond