The Sandbox

Following on my "games for change" post, I've been fiddling around lately with a little gem called 3rd World Farmer. The player takes on the role of a farmer in, I would imagine, sub-Saharan Africa.

According to the developers:

In the game, the player gets to manage an African farm, and is soon confronted with the often difficult choices that poverty and conflict necessitate. We find this kind of experience efficient at making the issues relevant to people, because players tend to invests their hopes in a game character whose fate depends on him. We aim at making the player "experience" the injustices, rather than being told about them, so as to stimulate a deeper and more personal reflection on the topics.

Yeah, so I'm late to the party and the bandwagon left. Theme high schools came into vogue in the 80's and have been building up steam and cache ever since. I suppose considering the general swing towards specialization in the workplace, it's not such a strange concept. But here we go, New Yorkers.

According to reports from NPR and others, the MacArthur Foundation (yes, the same MacArthur of the "genius" awards) has pledged $1.1 million in support of a theme high school in New York to teach video game development.

Lately, a group of us at work have been looking through submitted portfolios. The major industry shows are done, and HR has a few boxes of DVDs and CDs for us to go through. And we go through them all. Having gone through a lot lately, I have some advice for would-be game artists, and this is as good a place as any to impart it. It's fresh in my mind, and since I've been away from technology lately, fly fishing for salmon in the middle of nowhere, I'm not good for au courant industry news.

I'm not sure how I missed this one. Electronic Arts and BP Alternative Energy are partnering to make a game that teaches players about climatology and environmental change. Witness: SimCity Societies.

Just reading about the iDGA (not to be confused with the IGDA) which stands for internalDrive Gaming Academy recently at their site a friend turned me on to.

This organization offers short camp experiences with courses ranging from Game Design to Game Modding to Game Programming. Indeed, they recently received copies of Unreal Tournament 3 for their students to learn from and explore.

Target students range from 10 years old to 17. Indeed, it's a whole new era. If this educational trend continues to catch on, upcoming generations are going to know a lot more about how digital games get made than oldsters like me ever had the chance to.