[Edu] Curriculum and Cooperative games

[Carol Townsend]

On 4/4/07, Kate Jones <kate at gamepuzzles.com> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> What would be more palatable is if each player made moves that would
> enable
> all players to succeed. I build a bridge for you, and you build one for
> me.
> The game doesn't end until everyone has succeeded.


There are some great games out there (and some not so great....) that do
have this as a mechanism.  For example, there's a Canadian game company
that is all about cooperative games

http://www.cooperativegames.com/
and their sister site:
http://childandnature.com/index.html

I would love to see some good cooperative games in Ryan's eventual
curriculum, but that can't be the whole curriculum.  It isn't indicative of
our current society of game play, after all.  Most games out in the market
aren't cooperative.  It's a great topic to explore in this class, I think -
but it won't be able to be the only type of game he presents, I think.

Granted, just because a game is competitive doesn't make it better for
teaching logic and strategy and other good game-playing skills.  The same
can be said of cooperative games as well.  I've seen some lousy games that
were touted as "GREAT" simply because it's cooperative.  A game has to be
engaging all the way to the end, be it competitive or cooperative, or I just
won't want to play it.




I don't want to see people win by making others fail. I can accept winning
> through making the best moves within the environment of the gameboard. I
> want to see people compete against their own best skill, not to undermine
> the others. I want to remove malevolence as the prime operating directive
> in
> games. The current world situation is making it desperately urgent to come
> up with a new paradigm for humanity.


I'm totally with you - and this topic would be a great one for some writing
activities in the class.

One of the things on the Icehouse Wiki page:
http://icehousegames.org/wiki/?title=Main_Page

is this statement:
When designing games with Icehouse pieces, you are encouraged to break the
unwritten rules that players are used to in other games... rules like "you
have to take turns", "my pieces are in my color", and "you have to play on a
board."

I think I'd like to add in:
Break the unwritten rule of "it has to be competitive..."

Hmmm... I think I'll start a thread on the Icehouse list, just with this
thought in mind.  Hmmm....


-thoughtfully,
Carol
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