Agenda

I believe it is one of the great failures of our society that it has become socially acceptable to proudly proclaim one's own incompetence in mathematics or science. It would be absurd to hear someone similarly declaring that they simply don't read very well or don't think that reading is applicable to life or bragging about how they've never read a book. Yet, it is common place to hear someone use a phrase like "I just never got math" or "what's the point, you never use it once your out of school." It is precisely this attitude that guarantees critical thinking and logical thinking stay out of mainstream society and trapped in schools. I feel personally robbed of my education from hearing adults in my life say things like "I never did well in math either". I took that and used it as an excuse to limp along in mathmatics and even when I began to think of it as important I was never quite able to recover.

My agenda is to educate students at a relatively low mathematical level in simple math. I feel that by helping kids form a strong basis in the lower grades it will provide a much better launching platform for them to enter into Jr. High and High School where I believe negative attitudes about math are most common.

Using advanced mathematical concepts like Calculus or Linear Algebra in a game scenario is beyond me, but I can see how the foundation of math from simple addition and subtraction through geometry and possibly algebra could be incorporated fairly organically. I personally like game where you build and empire through abstract data, like wealth or population, but I also very much enjoy games where you build something more literally like building in the Sims series or Minecraft.

I feel like combining these into a game about construction for children would open the door for a lot of mathematics into the gameplay. The first part of the game would be managing a very simple business which consisted of a budget. Income and Expenses woudl have to be maintained to maintain a positive cache flow. This, however, would likely be a fairly small portion of the game.

The main game play would involve building structures from simple blueprints.  The building might call for 10 5foot pieces of wood. The Player would then have to order a similar amount of wood. On a particularly easy level there might be 5 foot pieces available for purchase, but as the player advances they would have to find the best deals by buying varying lengths and cutting them to meet specifications.

Game Reviews 01/13/11

McDonald's Game:
    At first glance at this game it is not entirely clear if it is
meant to paint McDonald's in a positive or negative light. It doesn't
take long, however, to see that there are options to purchase Politicians
or to add industrial waste to your cattle's fodder. The used satire and
some possible exaggeration to get their point across. I think that depending
on how strong they wanted to come on their presentation was effective. It's
possible I'm just really desensitized by modern media, but if they wanted me
to feel like McDonald's were the worst corporation out there then they needed
to be a little more over the top. Putting baby parts in the fodder might have
done it. This game I felt was the most direct in getting their point across
though. The standard for many of these "game with a cause" are to have
characters, plots, environments, etc. that are related to the cause but the
actually game-play is completely disconnected from it, not so with this game.

Congo Jones And The Loggers of Doom:
    It is a cute, but often laborious platformer that takes place
presumably in the Congo rain forests. Their message is almost entirely placed
in the text slide screens that you click through to get to the actual game. I
can't help but feel that their agenda is almost entirely left aside. In my
opinion it's gamer reflex to click any thing that says "next", "continue",
or "play" immediately without reading pages of text unless it is absolutely
necessary to playing the game, and with this one it is not. If the message
was somehow more integrated into their game with a villain logger characters
instead of just flying chainsaws, and something to identify with about the rain
forest that the player feels a connection to that they must actually protect.

Border Patrol Game:
    A fairly simple single view first person shooter game like many
other flash games. They used dehumanization to make their audience try
place the value of Mexicans at something other than that of a human being.
If games like Grand Theft Auto, and other violent video games are successful
in making people hate the police, or other innocent people, then it is possible
that this game is effective. It is my opinion though that games like this
do not have such a strong effect as Jack Thompson would like to think they have.
It could very well have the opposite effect by victimizing the Mexican people
instead of demonizing. A game where immigrant worker's were stealing jobs or
actually doing something that has a negative impact on our economy may be a better
delivery of their message, a game-play revolving around that would be more difficult
to think of however.