Current Events > What videogames should be taught at school for literature class?

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I saw this post on reddit:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/2/4/AAZsuhAADcwg.jpg

It makes me curious what kinda games this teacher is gonna have his students play. I know there are some teachers here. Do you guys agree with including videogames into the curriculum?

I think they should play Outerwilds

MGS1 and 2

Dragon Age: Origins

BioShock

I've seen games similar to Myst that solely rely on moving and reading...but that's all I got.

Manhunt

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door.

Omg they should play elden ring too.

That's a Games as Literature elective, not games being taught in a general lit class.

g0ldie posted...

BioShock

That would only work if the teacher actively made sure everyone understood that seasteading was a really dumb idea. You don't want to make children even slightly think that Libertarians have it together. NFTs are already bad enough, we don't need to see what a new generation would bring.

MGS series, whatever Fromsoft game, Disco Elysium.

Wonder what the structure of that class would be like

Undoubtedly they should all immerse themselves in what must be considered Square Enix's greatest creation, the only good PS4 game and 2018's overall best game, The Quiet Man.

none. the closest that come to that point are planescape: torment and disco elisyum

So I'm guessing this guy has a bunch of gaming monitors lined up on each every desk for his students? Not gonna lie that's pretty rad.

FFVI and FFX are both enthralling pieces that deal with topics of world war and propaganda. There's also the real-life historical angle of both of them having been made in a window of time after major world wars (even the Gulf War had ended) and just before social media and how that affected the outlook of the creators. I read a cool article about it once that I totally can't find now, but absolutely would dig up if I had this as a class.

Mass Effect LE.

That allows you to show the absolute highs of storytelling within the medium followed by how overambition muddied the water of many video game stories.

If only XBoxx had any gaemz

Not sure how well including games that are full of graphic violence and other explicit content would fly as part of a school curriculum.

Mass Effect 2

Not sure about literature, but Ive played war games that had more info about WW2 or Vietnam than I learned in History.

Gamefaqs posts as Literature taught by @MrMallard

Planescape: Torment

Anyone remember when Sim City was used as a teaching tool in schools?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edXRNtuAGTg

Deus Ex

Wtf fancy schmancy school has the budget for chalk let alone video game consoles

anyways, I dont see a difference between using games as a tool to teach as opposed to using movies and novels. But an issue would be that kids are taught these games and come to hate them even if they are good. Same way kids generally hate whatever novels or movies they have to watch simply because it becomes schoolwork instead of something they want to do.

The Outer Worlds with its creatively sardonic and witty dialogue carrying a large portion of the narrative structure.

The Witcher 3s Baron quest line alone is worthy of consideration, but the entire politically charged structure of the current world the story is set in is pretty epic.

Skyrim and the way lore is doled out through NPC dialogue, books and quest lines would make a cool cumulative project where everyone pools the lord to build an overall world building experience.

Finally, Tales of Berseria would be cool just because Id love to fly on the wall the discussions.

I wrote a psychology paper in college about Persona 5 lol

Kloe_Rinz posted...

Wtf fancy schmancy school has the budget for chalk let alone video game consoles

The best thing to do would be to have one console in the classroom. The teacher (who has already played the game before) starts the game and possibly lets others play if anyone is interested and there is enough time. For the students, it's sort of like watching a movie in class for educational purposes.

Zork or some other text based adventure game.

Sounds like Forest (if the class is 18+) should be on there:

"Forest, blends Metafiction, and fiction into a stunning amalgamation of pure Literacy, the world will not see it's like for decades. The narration is often at odds with the writing in subversion, subtle ways that is apparent in the English version, but has a life of it's own in the Japanese version.

Forest is a many-layered construction of English literature and dueling narrators and really weird sex. You could say that it is "about" five people in Shinjuku who are chosen to do battle with the Forest, a world of magic that has begun to intrude into the modern world. But this is really about as accurate a summary as saying that Finnegan's wake is "about" Mr. and Mrs. Porter and their three children's life in Chapelizod --it's part of the truth, but not all of it. Theoretically, if you played Forest enough times you'd be able to get to the core of the story, and be able to describe it in two or three pithy sentences. Unfortunately, this will almost certainly not happen by the time you're finished with your first playthrough of the game, because Forest is dense. It's only about six hours long, but in those six hours it covers more ground than other games two or three times the length.

It pulls threads from the body of English literature, sometimes even from the most unlikely places: there are references to "Five Children and It", "Lord of the Rings" and "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", to name a few. But in contrast to games like the Kingdom Hearts series, which reduce their crossover elements to playable cameos, Forest does some remarkably bizarre things with its source material. Its use of Winnie the Pooh and its ilk, for example, is freakishly inspired, both horrifying and affecting in the same measure.

For a relatively short game, Forest has an immense amount of graphical and musical variety. The game takes place over roughly a year's time, and the characters have different outfits for literally every major chapter of the story. Mundane passers-by morph into cats. Ravens take off their faces to become dashing gentlemen. The backgrounds are made up of what appear to be photos of Shinjuku, until you realize that there are gaping holes in the scenery through which you can see masses of leaves.

Forest is a unique work of fiction. How much you enjoy it depends on what kind of person you are--if your taste in fiction ranges more conventional, you might very well be repulsed, confused or even disgusted. But like Finnegan's Wake, like Dhalgren, like any high literacy you can name: if this game is for you, and it very well may be for you, then you should play it, at least once. Come at it from a pedestrian view, and and Forest is an incomprehensible mess, but to the right pair of eyes and ears it is a master piece. In closing, Forest is essentially a must-play. Just be aware that it's a challenging play."

Q-Bert got his own show and it was modern Shakespeare.

Red dead redemption

Fallout 3, obviously

I want to hear your thoughts on Miranda Tate, and how you interacted with her.

Visual novels. Hell, one of the greatest stories I've ever read was a hentai dating sim.

Persona 5

Portal
Journey
The Stanley Parable
Thomas Was Alone
Undertale maybe
A Souls game maybe

I would think we'd want to pick games that do interesting things with narrative, as opposed to just games that tell a story.

Ace Attorney games and Yakuza 0 would be my main picks. Oh, and Persona 3. Eh, maybe Wild Arms 3 as well to showcase what a strong female protagonist looks like.

I would pick Yakuza more for a "Games as Cinema" variant. :)

Y'know what throw in Disco Elysium there, and not just because it's got a bajillion words.

RedRanger posted...

Q-Bert got his own show and it was modern Shakespeare.

Q-bert has a dirty mouth

What remains of Edith Finch.

CyricZ posted...

I would pick Yakuza more for a "Games as Cinema" variant. :)

True. I'd unironically read a good novel adaptation though, just to really get into Kiryu and Majima's heads more.

Wouldn't the only one that'd be a good fit be Disco Elysium?

Ving_Rhames posted...

Wouldn't the only one that'd be a good fit be Disco Elysium?

Since it's so open ended there wouldn't be a way to form a consistent narrative across all the students, making it impossible to reasonably grade any written reports on it. So no, it would be the worst possible game I could think of.

gunplagirl posted...

Since it's so open ended there wouldn't be a way to form a consistent narrative across all the students, making it impossible to reasonably grade any written reports on it. So no, it would be the worst possible game I could think of.

Well hang on. I guess I hadn't thought about it from the perspective of written reports, but how necessary is it for each person to experience the exact same narrative? I would think the nature of the differing experiences could be handy in demonstrating how different perspectives on a work can form, much like different perspectives can be had about books.

I wonder if all their assignments will be in the format of youtube video essays

CyricZ posted...

Well hang on. I guess I hadn't thought about it from the perspective of written reports, but how necessary is it for each person to experience the exact same narrative? I would think the nature of the differing experiences could be handy in demonstrating how different perspectives on a work can form, much like different perspectives can be had about books.

But they aren't even really different perspectives when the scenarios change so radically.