Educational Games for Older Kids

I got a DM on LinkedIn from a friend asking for recommendations for educational games for older kids, since my friend was having trouble finding any worth spending time or money on. We are having a similar situation. Our nine-year-old no longer has any use for the learning games she used to play or her school offers, like Teach Your Monster to Read, Prodigy or ABC Mouse.

Minecraft has stepped into this space, creating more educational modules. The GGDA has even advised the Georgia DoE on, but teens now often find Minecraft to be a kids’ toy (https://education.minecraft.net/en-us/resources).

My main recommendation are entertainment titles that do a great job of Stealth Education. “Civilization” is the best example of this. I also recommended HDI’s own Machiavelli the Prince for politics, economics and Renaissance history (now on sale at https://www.gog.com/en/game/machiavelli_the_prince for less than $4). We want people to learn before they realize that is what they are doing 🙂

There used to be some excellent Flash games like Darfur is Dying, which taught about the Rwandan genocide, but the end of Flash means these games are hard to find and play, and who wants Flash on a computer they care about?

Steam does have the Education tag, but I find that a lot of games have that tag that should not. However, I have been told good things about https://store.steampowered.com/app/1270620/Project_Chemistry/ but since I have not played it, I do not feel I can specifically recommend it. Still, it might be worth taking the time to explore that tag on Steam. If you have explored that tag, or have your own recommendations, I would love to hear them.

Dragoncon 2024 Schedule

Got a fun Dragoncon schedule this year. Let me know what else I should attend.

Title: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Deepfakes
Description: Deepfakes are digital manipulations to replace one person’s likeness convincingly with that of another, to intentionally deceive or to damage one’s reputation. Originally done with tools like Photoshop, the rapidly evolving world of generative AI has taken the threats to a whole new level.
Panelists: Thomas Mihill (M), Meredith Filak Rose, Andrew Greenberg
Time: Thu 07:00 pm
Location: 313-314 Hilton (Length: 1 Hour)

Title: Indie Game Developers Roundtable
Description: A discussion on the state of independent game development in Georgia, recent changes to the industry, and what is on the horizon. Q&A to follow the panel’s discussion.
Panelists: Andrew Greenberg(M), Karen Williams, Jesse Jacobson, Valencia Coleman, Christopher Mifsud
Time: Sat 10:00 am
Location: Augusta E-H Westin (Length: 1 Hour)

Title: Digital Music Streaming: Where Does All the Money Go?
Description: Streaming has overtaken physical media as the way music is heard these days, but the payouts to artists are so low that many can’t make rent, and even Taylor Swift is complaining about it. How much money is really being made, how is it being distributed, and how open and fair is the process?
Panelists: Lia Holland, Matthew Lane, Meredith Filak Rose(M), Andrew Greenberg
Time: Sat 01:00 pm
Location: 313-314 Hilton (Length: 1 Hour)

Title: 10 Rules for Dealing with Police Encounters
Description: Knowing and asserting your rights along with common sense can greatly improve the outcome of any police encounter. This is a documentary from flexyourrights.org. A question and answer session will follow the film.
Panelists: Andrew Greenberg(M), Cory S. Rosenberger
Time: Sat 10:00 pm
Location: 313-314 Hilton (Length: 1 Hour)

The photo is of Karen Williams demoing her indie game Urchins and Ink at yesterday’s STEAMsports event at the Westin Peachtree, the same building where we will have our indie game panel.

Emperor of the Fading Suns Timeline

We released a free demo of Emperor of the Fading Suns Enhanced on Steam and GOG (please wishlist us on Steam and it generated a number of questions. I posted this timeline in hopes of clearing up some of the confusion.

1997: HDI released the original Emperor of the Fading Suns (EFS) 4x game, part of the Fading Suns universe. You can still get a patched version of that original strategy game on GOG.

2022: Working with a team of modders, HDI released Emperor of the Fading Suns Enhanced (EFSe), a revised version of the original game with hundreds of changes. This is actually available today as a Deal of the Day on GOG: https://www.gog.com/game/emperor_of_the_fading_suns

2022-2023: We continued working on the Enhanced version, and released some more patches that focused on improving the modding tools while also making fixes players had requested.

2024: We began working on a version that would work on Steam and with the Steam APIs.

April 19, 2024: We released a demo for the Enhanced version on Steam and GOG. This demo does not include any special Steam functionality.

Now: We are still working on the Steam version, and plan to incorporate any changes we make for that one into the GOG version. There are a number of great mods like Emperor Wars available for the game, and the modding tools are included with the paid versions of the game.

If you want to see the original changelog between the patched version of the original game and the first Enhanced version, that is here: https://items.gog.com/emperor_of_the_fading_suns/emperor_of_the_fading_suns_changelog.pdf

What Gaming Achievements Do You Like?

Gaming Achievements

The main point of this post is for me to ask you, “What gaming achievements do you like?” Feel free to skip the rest of this blog and just put your comments down below.

Even before video games tracked achievements for us, we often devised our own, unofficial ones. Win Space Invaders after shooting up all your defensive structures. Avoid activating any huts in Civilization. Keep Dogmeat alive all the way through Fallout 1.

The success of achievements on Steam has now made the concept ubiquitous in video games, and you can find them in tabletop games. I even know RPG GMs who come up with their own achievements for players who do something in especially spectacular fashion. This is one of the reasons games like the current edition of Fading Suns give players rewards when their characters do something especially cool or move the story forward on their own initiative.

Proponents of gamification point to achievements as one way to drive user behavior the developers want to see. In video games, achievements primarily stimulate replayability. In other apps, they might reward social interaction between members of a team, employees to comment on corporate wikis, encourage fitness app users to reach new health milestones, and so on.

Achievements also have a competitive aspect. Many players like to be the first to unlock or discover achievements, and there are entire web sites devoted to recognizing people who have unlocked all the achievements in certain games. 

However, I have never seen a list of what kinds of achievements players prefer. As a designer, I want them to try playing my games in the way I consider fun, which is why I give achievements for winning the game, and then more achievements for winning multiple times. I also want them to try different aspects of the game, which is why I give achievements for winning in different ways or as a different faction. I also want them to play my games in nontraditional ways, so they even get rewards for losing or trying paths that do not clearly lead to victory.

There are certainly achievements that have left me shaking my head. I remember earning an achievement in Tabletop Simulator for having played my first hour without flipping the table – something which I had no interest in doing and which I still have not done.

So, I ask again, what kind of achievements in games do you like?

Here are the achievements we included in Noble Armada: Lost Worlds:

  1. Knight – Win one mission (other than tutorial)
  2. Baronett – WIn three unique missions (other than tutorial)
  3. Baroness/Baron – Win eight unique missions (other than tutorial)
  4. Earl – Win 15 unique missions (other than tutorial)
  5. Countess/Count – Win 25 unique missions (other than tutorial)
  6. Duchess/Duke – Win 50 unique missions (other than tutorial)
  7. Lion Rampant – Win 10 unique missions as Hawkwood
  8. Mantis Warrior – Win 10 unique missions as Decados
  9. Defender of the Faith – Win 10 unique missions as Li Halan
  10. Tahir’s Path – Win 10 unique missions as al-Malik
  11. Estancia – Win 10 unique missions as Hazat
  12. Inquisitor – Win 10 unique missions as Church
  13. Skirmisher – Win 3 skirmishes
  14. Pious – Win the Church Campaign
  15. Conqueror – Succeed in Seize Station Mode
  16. Bold – Engage four enemy ships with just one Explorer in Skirmish mode
  17. Mammonist – Win a mission with more than 3000 firebirds
  18. Impetuous – Win a mission with exactly 0 firebirds left
  19. Varlet – Lost one mission (other than tutorial)
  20. Neer-do-well – Lost three missions (other than tutorial)
  21. Blackguard – Lose 25 missions
  22. Delusional – Lost a skirmish with one Explorer against four enemy ships
  23. Possessive – Own 10 weapons not assigned to ships
  24. Grease Monkey – have four ships and all four crews at full experience
  25. Drill Master – have four ships and all four marines at full experience
  26. Unyielding – Kill 10 ships in one session of Onslaught Mode
  27. Boarder – Capture five enemy ships by boarding
  28. Marksman – Destroy 10 enemy ships at range

Game Dev in DeKalb

I had a lot of fun talking with James Tsismanakis of the DeKalb County Convention and Visitors Bureau about Dragoncon, AI, and game dev in the county. I hope you have fun listening to it. In addition, at noon Saturday I will be talking about game dev to the Infinite Realities Kids Club. Come out and check out one of DeKalb’s great comic and game stores.