zach whalen's blog

Thinking back on this semester, it's hard not to resort to cliche: "I can't believe how fast it went by," for example. You all were a lively bunch, and that was fine by me. It has certainly been a momentous few months from my point of view, both for the significant developments in my personal life (i.e. becoming a father) and for the professional significance of my first semester as an assistant professor. I'll be honest, not everything went as well I had hoped in this class, and I'm certainly going to be rethinking some things when/if I teach Forms of Narrative again.
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Fresh on the heels of our discussing game, game, game and again game, Jason Nelson has released another work in a similar style. i made this. you play this. we are enemies appears to have some similar things going on, but I'm intrigued by the sense in which we as players/readers/critics/students are the game designer's "enemies." The comment in direction number 4, "stop trying to 'get it'" seems particularly targeted toward or relevant to our discussion of the game, especially since I made sure to set the game up by asking you to try and "get it" instead of "just" playing it.

So what do you think we should do with this? On the one hand, its energy seems somewhat more focused on playing with / mashing up specific online spaces, but I don't want to be a "shark with bees for hair" for saying so. Do you?

In class yesterday, we talked some about the process of programming games like this, and Christian asked later about the possibility creating something along the lines of Photopia for a final project. There are indeed free resources out there for creating these things, and if you're interested, I strongly recommend you look at Inform. (Go to the download page at the top right.)
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This is the course website and central hub of information for ENGL 251A, Forms of Narrative (section 1). Here you can find information about the schedule, assignments, and the complete, official syllabus.

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