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NY Time Reviews ‘DJ Hero’—One more game in the main stream

October 31st, 2009

SETH SCHIESEL wrote an interesting review of FreeStyleGames‘s new DJ Hero. He starts with a brief discussion on the influences of games such as Guitar Hero, WoW, and the Nintendo Wii in bringing game-play to the cultural mainstream before he gets into DJ Hero and it’s chance to bringhip-hop, electronica, techno and house to a wider audience.

Now hip-hop, electronica, techno and house music finally get their turn as a game with DJ Hero…Anchored by a spectacular and altogether groovy collection of original mixes, DJ Hero will certainly be the life of millions of parties around the world.

It’s a good read. In fact, it almost makes me want to try the game out. Link

G4LI Featured in NYU Alumni Magazine

October 30th, 2009
NYU Alumni Magazine

NYU Alumni Magazine

The NYU Alumni Magazine features G4LI in the article Mind Games by Ken Stier

Friday’s Featured Game of the Day—Zombies!!!

October 30th, 2009
Zombies everywhere (and animate skeletons as well)

Zombies everywhere (and animate skeletons as well)

Today’s featured game of the day is not so much education as it’s a homage to Halloween!!!

It’s all about Zombies and Skeletons

It was written by Kai Johnson for Professor Perlin’s games class.

Also, I put yesterday’s game of the day up, but I forgot to mentions here what it was, so here is yesterday’s (here is, or was? I think it is ‘is’…let’s go with that):  MathStroids

It was written by the NYU POLY XNA Dev Team.

mathseteroids

Game’a'Day #2 MathStroids!!

October 29th, 2009

Can you shoot the right numbers? Good luck!! This is the featured game for Thursday October 29.mathseteroids

Talk by Marcia Linn

October 28th, 2009

Teaching Science With Technology
Marcia C. Linn, UC Berkeley
Space is limited: RSVP via email to linn-talk @ tophe.net; RSVP required for non NYU visitors.

Abstract
Teaching with technology offers phenomenal advantages for teachers and students. Teachers can take advantage of the rich information about student progress available in embedded assessments when using technology-enhanced instruction. Our recent research compares two approaches to professional development. The Technology Enhanced Learning in Science (TELS) center implemented a targeted approach where teachers request the professional development support they need. These teachers generally requested help with technology in the first year, help using visualizations in the second year, and help with inquiry teaching in the third year. The Mentored and Online Development of Educational Leaders in Science (MODELS) project implemented a mentored approach where an on-site mentor coordinated school-wide planning, teachers reflected on student learning data, and teachers participated in a summer workshop to customize instruction. Analysis of results suggests that inquiry experience, collaboration with other teachers, and opportunity to customize can lead to changes in teacher practice that impact student learning. These studies also illustrate the importance of support from the school principal. They suggest directions for design of tools to support teachers for classroom management and communications with students.

Speaker Biography:
Marcia C. Linn is a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Psych-ological Science. She has served as Chair of the AAAS Education Section and as President of the International Society of the Learning Sciences. Her books include Computers, Teachers, Peers; Internet Environments for Science Education; and Designing Coherent Science Education. Her awards include the National Association for Research in Science Teaching Award for Lifelong Distinguished Contributions to Science Education and the Council of Scientific Society Presidents first award for Excellence in Educational Research.

The talk will be held at
Pless Hall, 5th Floor
82 Washington Square East (enter on Washington Place)

Sponsored by the Program in Educational Communications and Technology at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development

Game’a'Day

October 28th, 2009
So Many Games

So Many Games

GaD!!!

As part of our initial three year plan for the institute, we will be developing and play testing a series of mini-games, which we can repidly prototype and alter to fit a specific situation. In order to jumpstart this phase o

f our research plan, we have decided to feature a different game every weekday until our end of the semester games contest (about which I will say more later this week) in Mid-December.

Read the rest of this entry »

MiniMines

October 27th, 2009

NOTE: DOWNLOAD doesn’t work.  CLICK THE GAME IMAGE ABOVE TO VISIT THE ONLINE VERSION.

This is a game to practice factoring and multiplication.  On each level you’ll see some red faces that are sad and smiling green faces.  Click on a green face to make the red faces which have it as a factor happy.  It starts getting harder around level 11.

Plus Game

October 26th, 2009

Plus Game is a speed based arithmetic drill game. I mean, it’s really really fast….Good luck.

This Game was written and produced by  Younyil Kim for Professor Perlin’s fall graduate games class. This is the second set of mini games that the class has worked on.

UPDATE Nov 14 2009: Plus Game was updated today.

MnMs

October 24th, 2009

mnm
mnm

The machines are breaking the M&M’s. Someone is needed to go down to the assembly line to help pick out the broken bits. If you do well, we can move you one to harder tasks!! You may even get the much sought-after promotion!! This game was written and produced by Long Nguyen for Professor Perlin’s fall 2009 games class. This is the second set of mini games that the class has worked on.

UPDATE (7 Nov. 2009)- MnMs has been updated to version as of today: Long says

I changed the gameplay to use the keyboard, so that now it has a guitar hero feel to it.  I also tried to adjust the difficulty level to extend the game, but I’m not sure how successful that was.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Zombies!!!

October 24th, 2009

Zombies everywhere (and animate skeletons as well)

Zombies everywhere (and animate skeletons as well)

It’s almost Halloween. The dead are partying in the cemetery. Don’t let them escape. Also, pumpkins taste good, especially mid-air floating pumpkins.

this game was written and produced by Kai S Johnson for Professor Perlin’s fall 2009 games class. This is the second set of mini games that the class has worked on.

UPDATE (7 NOV. 2009)–Zombies was updated to a newer version today. Kai says, “The changes in v2 include adding sound and music, tweaking jumping and shooting, and longer levels.”

Photographic Memory

October 24th, 2009

“Photographic Memory” challenges your reconstruct the original image after it has been split into many tiles. How photographic is your memory?PhotogMemory

This game was written and produced by Mike Maloney for Professor Perlin’s fall 2009 games class. This is the second set of mini games that the class has worked on.

AliceAndBob

October 24th, 2009

AliceAndBob

Instructions are simple, use the arrow keys to move the characters, make them meet at the same time at the door.

One of the characters moves as per the input, while the other character behaves opposite to the input, viz. turns right when the left arrow key is pressed, and turns left when the right arrow key is pressed. Initially, my idea was to have everything to be opposite (i.e. even the up and down arrow keys), however, this is simple to code, but it overly complicated the things.

Maybe in further levels, we can add that. Another idea I was toying with was to make the characters start at corners diagonally opposite, but that way the maze became a bit complex. This is another feature that can be added.

This game was written and produced by Karan Anand for Professor Perlin’s fall 2009 games class. This is the second set of mini games that the class has worked on.

UPDATE (7 NOV. 2009). Alice and Bob was updated to a new verion today. Karan Says, “Based on the amazing feedback, there are a couple of changes made in the original game:
1.       Added the background music, and more sound effects

2.       Introduced new gameplay elements, viz. Switches to unlock doors, Spikes, More Inverted Controls

3.       Added 2 new levels, with progressive level of difficulty, based on the skills learnt in the game

4.       Tweaked the speed / acceleration a bit (for good or for worse, is upto the player to decide I guess)”