14:17
A teacher
It has been two years since I have written about gaming. Domestic life and professional considerations are serious demands. However, I have been nourishing my imaginative life again recently, through films, books and games.
As an English teacher, I believe that (at its best) language learning is about experiencing how perception can be created, both consciously and otherwise. Students can experience life that exists beyond that immediately in front of their face, and games can do this.
Of course, I no longer have time to read and watch and game for many hours. Often this time is a little snatched. The hours free at the weekends and evenings are filled with family and friends, and gaming takes its rightful place as an enhancement of my imaginative life.
Fortunately, we will in a time where a great many games are made for those with little time (and much experience).
Games like The Stanley Parable, The Beginner's Guide, Dear Esther are all experiences that last a few hours at the most. All challenge expectations, though, and link directly to my experience of literature. Other games like Crusader Kings, Hearts of Iron scratch an itch to experience a lifestyle that (frankly!) an English teacher is unlikely to experience.
Part of playing games, and gaming culture, is (I think) to begin to make them myself. I have friends who have made indie games, usually point and click adventures.
The games that I would like to make are like the books I have written: ones that involve making difficult moral choices. Currently I'm happily working through revamps of the 80s Gamebooks (Fighting Fantasy et al).
What games can do with this style of narrative fiction is to sustain a more invisible narrative that tracks the relative level of 'morality' that the reader chooses. Put another way, choices can be 'scored' and open other choices or paths in the narrative. Ultimately, the kind of Gamebooks I want to write are those for an older teenage or an adult audience - ones that challenge the reader to truly interact and experience moral situations which they would (hopefully) not experience in RL. Such texts would need to be literary, and perhaps use Shakespeare or similar canonical stories to frame their narratives.
Frankenstein and 80 Days around the world have recently experienced some excellent revitalisations.
On a final note, I would like to draw attention to the Institute of Gaming's new course to teach gaming in schools. While this requires a fairly fluid international/private curriculum to truly integrate into a classroom, this is something that deserves some judicious attention.
As an English teacher, I believe that (at its best) language learning is about experiencing how perception can be created, both consciously and otherwise. Students can experience life that exists beyond that immediately in front of their face, and games can do this.
Of course, I no longer have time to read and watch and game for many hours. Often this time is a little snatched. The hours free at the weekends and evenings are filled with family and friends, and gaming takes its rightful place as an enhancement of my imaginative life.
Fortunately, we will in a time where a great many games are made for those with little time (and much experience).
Games like The Stanley Parable, The Beginner's Guide, Dear Esther are all experiences that last a few hours at the most. All challenge expectations, though, and link directly to my experience of literature. Other games like Crusader Kings, Hearts of Iron scratch an itch to experience a lifestyle that (frankly!) an English teacher is unlikely to experience.
Part of playing games, and gaming culture, is (I think) to begin to make them myself. I have friends who have made indie games, usually point and click adventures.
The games that I would like to make are like the books I have written: ones that involve making difficult moral choices. Currently I'm happily working through revamps of the 80s Gamebooks (Fighting Fantasy et al).
What games can do with this style of narrative fiction is to sustain a more invisible narrative that tracks the relative level of 'morality' that the reader chooses. Put another way, choices can be 'scored' and open other choices or paths in the narrative. Ultimately, the kind of Gamebooks I want to write are those for an older teenage or an adult audience - ones that challenge the reader to truly interact and experience moral situations which they would (hopefully) not experience in RL. Such texts would need to be literary, and perhaps use Shakespeare or similar canonical stories to frame their narratives.
Frankenstein and 80 Days around the world have recently experienced some excellent revitalisations.
On a final note, I would like to draw attention to the Institute of Gaming's new course to teach gaming in schools. While this requires a fairly fluid international/private curriculum to truly integrate into a classroom, this is something that deserves some judicious attention.
