The Future

I'm working on several new game-based projects. I'll sketch out two of them here and keep you updated as things progress. The next few months are going to be extremely exciting.   

Summer Camp
I am organizing a game-based summer camp for 8-12-year-olds. It's looking like it will be held in West LA. We're going to do Minecraft, Portal, basic computer programming, and numerous fun/nerdy outdoor activities. This is in the very early stages, but I have a fair amount of the curriculum planned out already. It will be educational, challenging, and hopefully by the end of two weeks kids will leave as better digital citizens, budding computer programmers, and all around more awesome and educated human beings.

A lot of details will be sorted out by the end of this weekend. Many more details to follow next week.

Game Theory
We've started up a new round of after school programs, and this time I'm teaching a class called Game Theory. No, not that game theory. We study video games.

I'm approaching this the same way I approach a media analysis class -- if you don't analyze the media you consume, it will mislead and misuse you. Going into the first class, I expected discussions to be a fight, since the kids would want to play games the whole time. I underestimated them. These kids genuinely want to learn more about how video games work and affect them.

Throughout the course, we're going to play like game designers. Videos from the fine folks at ExtraCreditz  will be our guide (though with caution, since some include profanity). I'm extremely excited to get this rolling and start analyzing games, so I'll start including Game Theory updates on this blog as well. I think the students are going to make some powerful connections and observations.