[game_edu] game_edu Digest, Vol 48, Issue 7

[Rob Holt]

For Unity, the educational is the same as the retail pricing, & I
second use of the tool, it is amazing. It imports Maya scenes
directly, can refresh them dynamically, & can also build for Wii &
iphone. The UI is written using lots of OSX technologies, & for a
while I think it is safe to say there will never be a PC or Linux
version.

We made this in 2 days. The programmers had never used Javascript.

http://tojam.ca/games_2008/office_smash.asp   (Graphics Card Intensive)

JavaScript (& Actionscript which are both EMACS based) is a very good
base language to teach programming to artists. The Unity
implimentation allows quick results for a good feedback curve (really
NOT trying to start a what's the best language thread, I suggest
reading the last 5 years of Slashdot.org for detailed discussions on
the best language to begin teaching).

On the Editor side, I wish GtkRadiant, Hammer or UnrealEd were as
quick or friendly.

Robertson Holt
IADT _ Toronto

------------------------------------------------

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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------

>              IGDA Education SIG

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------

>

> Today's Topics:

>

>   1. Re: suggestions for readings? (David Thomas)

>   2. Re: suggestions for readings? (Kim Gregson)

>   3. Gamemaker for intro programming; who owns student work

>      (Lewis Pulsipher)

>   4. Re: Gamemaker for intro programming;      who owns student work

>      (Steve Swink)

>   5. Re: Gamemaker for intro programming;      who owns student work (carl)

>

>

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------

>

> Message: 1

> Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:48:13 -0700

> From: "David Thomas" <david at buzzcut.com>

> Subject: Re: [game_edu] suggestions for readings?

> To: ai864 at yahoo.com, "IGDA Game Education Listserv"

>        <game_edu at igda.org>

> Message-ID:

>        <737c06080811110948m21e9d98dt240ce9c7913a5ff2 at mail.gmail.com>

> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

>

> On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 9:34 AM, Ian Schreiber <ai864 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>

>> As for the division between "play" and "fun," I'm not familiar with any

>> readings that make explicit distinctions between the two, but I'll go out on

>> a limb and say that play is an activity, and fun is the result of (or

>> emotional reaction to) an activity, so the two terms describe different

>> things and can't be directly compared. But that's just my reaction.

>>

>> - Ian

>>

>

> Can you play and not have fun? Sure.Can you have enjoyable play and not have

> fun? Maybe.

> Can you have fun and not play? Of course.

>

> So why do play and fun stick together as much as play and games (or fun and

> games for that matter)?

>

> I think something else that complicates the "fun" concept is that from what

> I've been able to dig up so far, the term fun is pretty new. It's not an old

> word by any measure, and the way it is used in, at least North American

> contexts, is something different than "fun as amusement" of the past 200

> years.

>

> It's a bit out of my area, but I am led to believe that the meaning of the

> word as we use it in English might be more an American concept, and one that

> has filtered out into other languages. I would certainly like to hear from

> my global friends on that assumption.

>

> Sorry to tack this problem onto this particular thread. But I stumped at the

> moment on the fun concept and wonder either a) what I am missing or b) if

> there is actually a real problem here!

>

> -- David

>

>>

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> ------------------------------

>

> Message: 2

> Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:46:17 -0500

> From: "Kim Gregson" <kimatiu at gmail.com>

> Subject: Re: [game_edu] suggestions for readings?

> To: "IGDA Game Education Listserv" <game_edu at igda.org>

> Message-ID:

>        <1441945f0811111046h7b39d18au2ca0e9547534bb99 at mail.gmail.com>

> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

>

> I see fun as an effect. In the case of my class eventually we want to

> consider fun an effect of playing games. Entertainment, enjoyment, and

> engagement are effects, too that we might see from media use, and we have to

> consider how all the effects are related. There's a developing field of

> study looking at  entertainment as a media use effect that I think will add

> a lot to the discussion too. Play is something people do. Games are one kind

> of thing (concept) people use to play

>

> When we study other media effects, we consider a variety of factors that

> could affect the "fun" effect, including

>  - characteristics of the "media user" (in this case, game player) - past

> experiences, psychological factors, reasons for using the media, how they

> felt when they started using the media, genre they typically prefer, how

> they evaluated the media before we started (had they heard lots of bad

> reviews for instance), how much time they have to spend on media use

>  - characteristics of the "media" (in this case the games) - quality of the

> media, difficulty of use, what does the user do with it (watch vs interact),

> content (really gory/bloody, sexual references, violence, characters that

> look like the user..)

> - characteristics of the environment (in this case where the games are

> played) - is the computer fast enough, does screen size matter, does

> fidelity of the audio playback matter, does the temperature of the room

> matter, the comfortableness of the couch/chair matter.

>

> We look at the effect too because there's usually a range of responses in

> that effect (in our case from not fun at all to so much fun I'm going to

> explode<G>) - how we measure comes from how we define it, how we

> differentiate it from other effects.  We have to see if there are physical

> results of having fun as well as emotional results since physical effects

> would be easier to measure.

>

> In my mind this is not something to be solved in a semester - lots of good

> questions and issues being raised right here and they've made for

> interesting reading. But lots of questions can be raised, relevant

> literature can be identified and summarized, some variables can be examined,

> perhaps a list of variables to consider in the future can be created.

>

> I'd love to get  with people from a lot of different fields to see how they

> consider "fun" Probably they could suggest still other variables and

> measurement techniques. As David mentions - the idea of having fun is pretty

> new (maybe it's related to a certain amount of economic excess that allows

> for free time) but we know that games have been around longer than recorded

> history. Maybe the history and econ folks can shed some light; i need to

> track down some other email lists and get them in on the conversation<G>

>

> A lot of my research has been as a media effects person. So that's my hammer

> and fun is my particular nail today.

> How else can we consider fun besides an effect or outcome? We need some

> different lenses to look at it I think.

>

> Kim

>

> On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 12:48 PM, David Thomas <david at buzzcut.com> wrote:

>

>> On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 9:34 AM, Ian Schreiber <ai864 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>>

>>> As for the division between "play" and "fun," I'm not familiar with any

>>> readings that make explicit distinctions between the two, but I'll go out on

>>> a limb and say that play is an activity, and fun is the result of (or

>>> emotional reaction to) an activity, so the two terms describe different

>>> things and can't be directly compared. But that's just my reaction.

>>>

>>> - Ian

>>>

>>

>> Can you play and not have fun? Sure.Can you have enjoyable play and not

>> have fun? Maybe.

>> Can you have fun and not play? Of course.

>>

>> So why do play and fun stick together as much as play and games (or fun and

>> games for that matter)?

>>

>> I think something else that complicates the "fun" concept is that from what

>> I've been able to dig up so far, the term fun is pretty new. It's not an old

>> word by any measure, and the way it is used in, at least North American

>> contexts, is something different than "fun as amusement" of the past 200

>> years.

>>

>> It's a bit out of my area, but I am led to believe that the meaning of the

>> word as we use it in English might be more an American concept, and one that

>> has filtered out into other languages. I would certainly like to hear from

>> my global friends on that assumption.

>>

>> Sorry to tack this problem onto this particular thread. But I stumped at

>> the moment on the fun concept and wonder either a) what I am missing or b)

>> if there is actually a real problem here!

>>

>> -- David

>>

>>>

>>

>> _______________________________________________

>> game_edu mailing list

>> game_edu at igda.org

>> http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_edu

>>

>>

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> ------------------------------

>

> Message: 3

> Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:07:11 -0500

> From: "Lewis Pulsipher" <lewpuls at gmail.com>

> Subject: [game_edu] Gamemaker for intro programming; who owns student

>        work

> To: game_edu at igda.org

> Message-ID:

>        <790382db0811121607j77564d7ah7f3425a1f6c3f0e8 at mail.gmail.com>

> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

>

> Do you know of anyone who has used Gamemaker as a principal tool for

> teaching Introduction to Programming classes (not just for game students,

> but for programming students in general)?  It would appear to be an ideal

> way to put some fun into elementary programming.

>

>

> Going back to the question of who owns student work, the response of the

> lawyer who writes the legal advice column for IGDA will be of interest:

> http://www.igda.org/columns/lastwords/lastwords_Nov08.php

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> ------------------------------

>

> Message: 4

> Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:28:30 -0700

> From: "Steve Swink" <sswink at flashbangstudios.com>

> Subject: Re: [game_edu] Gamemaker for intro programming;        who owns

>        student work

> To: "IGDA Game Education Listserv" <game_edu at igda.org>

> Message-ID:

>        <ff1a1b790811121928s57f5fb8aw4a287c6a4613def6 at mail.gmail.com>

> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

>

> I haven't used Gamemaker, but if I may recommend checking out Unity, I think

> it's at least as good an option for putting fun into elementary programming.

> Plus, it's a proper 3d engine, has PhysX integration, and has one-click

> deployment to web, mac, and PC:

>

> www.unity3d.com

>

> It's what we at Flashbang Studios use for all our games (www.blurst.com) and

> I'm currently teaching it to a class of 27 art students. It's going

> surprisingly well; the language is similar to Actionscript, but easier to

> learn and use.

>

> Also, the Unity guys are young, enthusiastic, and *extremely* open to

> unorthodox licensing solutions, including extended trials and so on. They

> really "get it" in terms of building a user base. I can't say enough good

> things about them and the Unity environment.

>

> Best,

>

> Steve

>

> On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 5:07 PM, Lewis Pulsipher <lewpuls at gmail.com> wrote:

>

>> Do you know of anyone who has used Gamemaker as a principal tool for

>> teaching Introduction to Programming classes (not just for game students,

>> but for programming students in general)?  It would appear to be an ideal

>> way to put some fun into elementary programming.

>>

>>

>> Going back to the question of who owns student work, the response of the

>> lawyer who writes the legal advice column for IGDA will be of interest:

>> http://www.igda.org/columns/lastwords/lastwords_Nov08.php

>>

>>

>>

>> _______________________________________________

>> game_edu mailing list

>> game_edu at igda.org

>> http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_edu

>>

>>

>

>

> --

> ______________________________________

>

> Steve Swink

>

> Game Designer, Flashbang Studios

> Coordinator, Independent Games Festival

> 209 E. Baseline Suite 201 Tempe, AZ 85283

>

> (480) 393-0885, Phone | (480) 626-5992, Fax

> (480) 353-6763, Mobile

>

> www.flashbangstudios.com

> www.steveswink.com

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> ------------------------------

>

> Message: 5

> Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:31:45 -0400

> From: "carl" <carl at measurand.com>

> Subject: Re: [game_edu] Gamemaker for intro programming;        who owns

>        student work

> To: "IGDA Game Education Listserv" <game_edu at igda.org>

> Message-ID: <003e01c94540$5ac4cc00$0a02a8c0 at sage>

> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

>

> - I like unity too. I have tried to contact them about educational pricing but no reply so far. Do you know if they have educational pricing?

>

> - any idea when their windows version will come out?

>  ----- Original Message -----

>  From: Steve Swink

>  To: IGDA Game Education Listserv

>  Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 11:28 PM

>  Subject: Re: [game_edu] Gamemaker for intro programming;who owns student work

>

>

>  I haven't used Gamemaker, but if I may recommend checking out Unity, I think it's at least as good an option for putting fun into elementary programming. Plus, it's a proper 3d engine, has PhysX integration, and has one-click deployment to web, mac, and PC:

>

>  www.unity3d.com

>

>  It's what we at Flashbang Studios use for all our games (www.blurst.com) and I'm currently teaching it to a class of 27 art students. It's going surprisingly well; the language is similar to Actionscript, but easier to learn and use.

>

>  Also, the Unity guys are young, enthusiastic, and extremely open to unorthodox licensing solutions, including extended trials and so on. They really "get it" in terms of building a user base. I can't say enough good things about them and the Unity environment.

>

>  Best,

>

>  Steve

>

>

>  On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 5:07 PM, Lewis Pulsipher <lewpuls at gmail.com> wrote:

>

>    Do you know of anyone who has used Gamemaker as a principal tool for teaching Introduction to Programming classes (not just for game students, but for programming students in general)?  It would appear to be an ideal way to put some fun into elementary programming.

>

>

>    Going back to the question of who owns student work, the response of the lawyer who writes the legal advice column for IGDA will be of interest:  http://www.igda.org/columns/lastwords/lastwords_Nov08.php

>

>

>

>    _______________________________________________

>    game_edu mailing list

>    game_edu at igda.org

>    http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_edu

>

>

>

>

>

>  --

>  ______________________________________

>

>  Steve Swink

>

>  Game Designer, Flashbang Studios

>  Coordinator, Independent Games Festival

>  209 E. Baseline Suite 201 Tempe, AZ 85283

>

>  (480) 393-0885, Phone | (480) 626-5992, Fax

>  (480) 353-6763, Mobile

>

>  www.flashbangstudios.com

>  www.steveswink.com

>

>

>

> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>

>

>  _______________________________________________

>  game_edu mailing list

>  game_edu at igda.org

>  http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_edu

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> game_edu at igda.org

> http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_edu

>

>

> End of game_edu Digest, Vol 48, Issue 7

> ***************************************

>