Play Make Write Think

Author: David

Chess: The Game of Strategy

Ready, Set, Game
In this podcast episode, Will, Giovanni, and Sadie take a deep dive into the game of Chess–the setup, rules, strategies, and applications to everyday life.  How does Chess enhance our ability to think a few steps ahead and maintain a clear end goal? How can we take effective action to succeed in a Chess game? Hopefully after listening, you will come away with a new outlook on the importance of strategy. Sources: Music:

Keeping your head in the game

Ready, Set, Game

In this episode, Greg and I will be discussing the soccer video game FIFA 20. We will discuss how sports video games can simulate a real-life situation and bring people together virtually. In the midst of a global pandemic where people are socially distancing, there is no better time to discuss how e-sports compare to real-life sports and how people can stay involved in their favorite sports when they are unable to be physically played. We also examine how e-sports can fill a void in our lives and how they will continue to evolve in the future. Join us on the soccer pitch!

Producer: Michael Mariam

Assistant Producer: Greg Lawrence

Line Producer: Winslow Wanglee

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Music Sources: Free Music Archive

All music by Scott Holmes in the album Corporate & Motivational Music 2:

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This is not the apocalypse you were looking for

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The essay “This Is Not the Apocalypse You Were Looking For: Pop culture has been inundated with catastrophe porn for decades. None of it has prepared us for our new reality” by Laurie Penny for Wired is probably the most beautiful piece of writing I’ve seen about the coronavirus pandemic. She begins by running through a list of games and other media that have served up catastrophe porn “somewhere between wish fulfillment and trauma rehearsal”: “I was expecting Half-Life. I was expecting World War Z. I’ve been dressing like I’m in The Matrix since 2003″ but this apocalypse is going differently than expected, “less Danny Boyle and more Douglas Adams.”

These two paragraphs really hit home for me:

The end of the world has never been quite so simple a mythos for women, likely because most of us know that when social structures crack and shatter, what happens isn’t an instant reversion to muscular state-of-naturism. What happens is that women and carers of all genders quietly exhaust themselves filling in the gaps, trying to save as many people as possible from physical and mental collapse. The people on the front line are not fighters. They are healers and carers. The very people whose work is rarely paid in proportion to its importance are the ones we really need when the dung hits the Dyson. Nurses, doctors, cleaners, drivers. Emotional and domestic labor have never been part of the grand story men have told themselves about the destiny of the species—not even when they imagine its grave.

[…]

My job will be the same as yours and everyone else’s: to be kind, to stay calm, and to take care of whoever happens to need taking care of in my immediate vicinity. We have been living for many, many years in what Gramsci called a time of monsters, where “the old is dying and the new cannot be born.” The new is now being induced in a hurry, because after this, nothing is going back to normal. It’s the end of the world as we know it, and everything does feel fine—not fine like chill, but fine like china, like glass, like thread. Everything feels so fine, and so fragile, and so shockingly worth saving.

It makes me think of Gris and some of the other games we’ve been playing this semester. I hope you find her essay illuminating.

Thinking with Portals

Ready, Set, Game

In this episode Kathy and I will be taking a closer look at Portal 2, a puzzle game made by Valve Corporation in 2011. The players find themselves inside of a test chamber, equipped with a portal gun, and have to use the power of portals to figure out a way to escape. How does a 9 year old game still appeal to modern gamers? Come and join us as we explore how the dedicated and passionate player-base has helped elevate this game to a place that the developers would not have been capable of reaching alone.

Music:

Settlers of Catan

Ready, Set, Game

In this episode, we will discuss mainly the strategy or telescoping and the application of skills used in Settlers of Catan to the real world. What are the choices we have to select? How does probability play a role in the real-life? How do you succeed? This discussion also talks about today’s big problem, coronavirus. After listening to this episode, you will start to think about what we should do now.

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Used BGM from Bensound:

Probing Paranoia

Ready, Set, Game

In this episode, we discussed the game of Paranoia. Yes, that party game that everyone loves to play when they have a lot of alcohol in their system. But, this time we are going to take you into a dive of playing not only sober, but during a time of quarantine and pandemic. Is it still tense? Is it still crazy? Does it still produce that feeling of paranoia? These are all questions that this podcast will answer while simultaneously analyzing parts of the game that go overlooked. Paranoia is not just a messy, scary game to play. It is more than that; players have to navigate the game on a slippery slope to achieve their goal. YES, Paranoia is all about obtaining goals and having a hidden agenda that the other players do not know. It is about being sneaky and strategic. So, take a dive into this podcast episode to learn more about the overlooked (hidden, even?) truths of Paranoia.

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