Results tagged “gaming” from WorldCat Blog

A couple weeks ago I attended a LibraryCamp at the Allen County Public Library in Ft. Wayne, IN. Before you ask: No. We did not sleep at the library.

A bunch of librarians and library types and a wannabe or two (like me) got together to talk about how we use libraries and how libraries can do better at meeting your needs. It was much more fun than you might expect. At least for us wannebe's. ACPL did a great job and drew a lot of interesting people.

Anyway, I sort of facilitated a session on gaming in the library. I say "sort of" because I'm not a great facilitator, and I'm not a big gamer. Most of the people showed up at the session to play Guitar Hero or Rock Band so we didn't talk about gaming all that much. But I did talk to a few librarians who are responsible for their library's young adult and/or children's collections.

The conversation reminded all of us of the Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) series, which in turn reminds me of the old text-based adventure computer games I played back in 1984 and 85. (Type "N" to go north. Don't type "F" for forward because you'll fall through the porch. Type "R" to run from the werewolf when you do fall through the porch. That sort of thing.)

This all came back to me the other day when my son, who is in third grade, came home with two CYOA books. He's very excited about reading these books. This from the boy who begs me to play Myst with him. (I still haven't finished the original Myst. I told you, I'm not a big gamer.)

Our library has a lot of computer games that kids can check out, and the library has a few machines for the kids to play CD-ROM games like The Magic School Bus. But right now the CYOA book series is the most exciting thing to my son. Why?

I think Captain Planet summed it up for the Mellennial Generation: "The power is yours!" Just like in gaming! Whether it is the old Castle Quest or Spore, you can make choices and discover the outcomes.

So just how different is gaming from the CYOA series? You have fewer choices, but all narrative structures have boundaries. The medium is different, but not much different from games of yore. The book is 'single player,' or is it? You are still making choices and discovering outcomes when you read a CYOA book. I think that is what excited my son. It's a different narrative experience, but you still get a sense of influence as the events unfold.

Often times we struggle to keep our kids interested in reading and to limit their screen time. As Janet Murray suggests in Hamlet on the Holodeck, we should look back to older forms of storytelling and consider how those formats influence the next.

Maybe I'll introduce my sons to my old Hypercard stacks.

BTW: Using the new tagging feature on WorldCat.org, I added "Choose Your Own Adventure" to a few of the CYOA books available in our local library. Tag some yourself so we can gather all of these.

I am a gamer. At 42-years-old, I calculate that I've been playing video games for about... 34 years. I had the first Atari 2600 system, a TRS-80 computer (on which I learned to make my own games in Basic), a ColecoVision machine... and a bunch of other platforms over the years. Everything from the same computer I do work on, to my phone, to an XBox 360 and a Wii. I now play with my 8-year-old son, who kick's my... scores... in Super Mario Galaxy, Star Wars Battlefront (1 and 2) and BoomBlox. He's just started playing the XBox version of Sid Meier's "Civilization," and I couldn't be prouder. It's a hard game, with lots of reading, and a lot of elements that are absolutely required for strategy games.

Yes. I'm proud of my son's gaming abilities. For years, computer/video games were the social and cultural equivalent of, well... something nasty and bad. I don't even know. But when I'd talk to non-gamers (just about everyone) back in the 80's, I got blank stares. By the time I was in college, video games were clearly "here to stay," but were also something adults talked about as being bad for kids in the same sentence as drugs, booze, partying and "that rock-and-roll music."

Sigh. Oh, well. Part of being into a fringe activity is being misunderstood, I suppose.

Now, however, games are clearly big business, and a big part of the cultural and social landscape. And libraries are getting into the act.

This is not new news.Jenny Levine (here, not here) has been doing library game stuff forever. In fact, I found my way to an article on library gaming in my home town paper, the Columbus Dispatch, from a post on her blog, the Shifted Librarian. It's a good post, and a good article, and explains many of the benefits of gaming in libraries.

The best quote of the piece, which Jenny also highlights [stop taking my blog fodder!  ;-) ], is, I think, the following: "Gaming is storytelling for teenagers."

Except I haven't been a teenager since Regan was president, and gaming is storytelling for me, too.

Years ago, I was asked by a non-gaming friend to explain the attraction of gaming, specifically playing MMOs. "It just makes no sense," she said to me. "Why do you want to pretend to be someone else, in a made-up place, with a bunch of other people who are pretending to be someone else?"

I remember shrugging and saying, "I don't know, exactly. You read novels, right?" She did, and nodded. "Well," I asked, "What's the attraction of reading something that came from someone else's imagination, that is explicitly untrue, and that only ends up existing in your head?"

She smiled and said, "You got me."

I'm not saying playing games is the same as reading. And I'm not saying that doing one in any way replaces doing the other. But there are stories in games. And there is imagination, strategy, thinking, creativity, fun, friendship and community. Those are all things I hope my son can find at every library he encounters.

Big news this week as Grand Theft Auto IV breaks not just video game sales records but all entertainment industry (film, music, etc.) records for first day ($310 million) and first week ($500 million) sales. If Halo 3 didn’t do it, GTA surely cements the video game industry as a, maybe even the, leading force in entertainment.

So what does this mean in terms of you and your local library? Quite a bit:

The Games
The first and most obvious (although maybe not if you think of your library only in terms of books): there’s a good chance many of the games you’re looking for, and shelling out 50 bucks or more for, are sitting on the shelves of your local library. And don’t forget the walkthrough books. Many libraries even loan game consoles.

The Job Market
An industry growing this fast and pulling in this much revenue is hot for new talent. From coding to writing to art and animation, your library is the perfect place to start researching the ins and outs of the business and what it takes to get your foot in the door. Here is some material to get started with, but there are dozens more. Your reference librarians are also a great resource to get the best information in your hands if you’re having trouble locating what you need. Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Critical Analysis
From health concerns and marketing sex and violence to children to improved hand-eye coordination and visual analysis of information, there’s no shortage of critical material regarding video games. The industry and its products are valid topics for academic consideration at all levels of education, and your library can serve as a research hub.

Howdy folks. I’m Bob Schulz and I’m the product manager for WorldCat.org. I also like to pretend that I’m a superb Guitar Hero shredder.

I am not.

So it’s science fair project preparation season and as I avoided blogging about it I ran across this little item:

2008 IGF Awards Topped by Crayon Physics Deluxe

The Independent Games Festival celebrates achievements by, well, independent game developers. Small game shops, or people sitting in their basements, are creating some of the most innovative, exciting, and, frankly, addictive games available today. I urge you to check out the winners and nominees.

But I digress. The concept of Crayon Physics is simple: draw objects on the screen that will move the circle so that it touches all the stars. The objects the player creates move realistically, have weight, turn on axes, etc. The increasing difficulty of the levels forces the player to experiment with more complex objects, and sets of objects, to achieve the goal. Behold this lovely video:

What an elegant, intuitive, and fun tool to introduce kids to the fundamentals of Newton’s laws of motion and theory of universal gravitation. The game also provides a level editor so players, students, teachers could create new challenges. Wouldn’t this be a great addition to the computers in schools and libraries? Say “yes, Bob, it would.”

Unfortunately, the Deluxe version is not yet available, but the original prototype, which the developer wrote in less than 7 days, can be snagged freely from Kloonigames’ site. Download it and have at it.