Portal invades college curriculum

[Purkake]

Via Brainy Gamer:

 

This year, for the first time, a video game will appear on the syllabus of a course required for all students at Wabash College, where I teach. For me - and for a traditional liberal arts college founded in 1832 - this is a big deal.

 

Alongside Gilgamesh, Aristotle's Politics, John Donne's poetry, Shakespeare's Hamlet, and the Tao Te Ching, freshmen at Wabash will also encounter a video game called Portal. If you're curious to know how it happened, read on.

 

Last spring Wabash faculty approved a new all-college course and charged a small committee to design it over the following summer and fall semester. I was elected to the committee as a representative of the Humanities.

 

We titled the new course "Enduring Questions," and we agreed on this description:

 

Enduring Questions is a required freshman seminar offered during the spring semester. It is devoted to engaging students with fundamental questions of humanity from multiple perspectives and fostering a sense of community. Each section of the course includes a small group (approximately 15) of students who consider together classic and contemporary works from multiple disciplines. In so doing, students confront what it means to be human and how we understand ourselves, our relationships, and our world.

 

The daily activity of the course most often involves discussion, and students complete multiple writing assignments for the course. As such, assessment of student performance emphasizes written and oral expression of ideas.

 

Students may not withdraw from the course. All students must pass the course to graduate from Wabash.

 

Our charge from the faculty made it clear that we should apply a broad definition to "readings," and I believe my special purpose on the committee was to help identify films, music, art, and other 'non-textual' sources to challenge our students to think hard about the questions raised in the course.

 

And so, as you might expect, a little light went off in my head. What about a game? Why not? Which one? Will they bite on this? Who knows? Let's try.

 

My very first thought was Portal. Accessible, smart, cross-platform, relatively short, full of big ideas worth exploring. I played it again to be sure my impressions still held. No problem there. If anything, I admire the game more now than when it first appeared. A beautiful design.

 

I recalled reading Daniel Johnson's recent essay on the game and its strong connections to Erving Goffman's seminal Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. One of the central questions of our new course, "Who am I?" is the focus of Goffman's study. He contends we strive to control how we're perceived by others, and he uses the metaphor of an actor performing on a stage to illustrate his ideas. Johnson describes it this way:

 

 

[Oner]

Now if only s/he could work Torment in too.

Edited August 24, 2010 by Oner

[Maria Caliban]

I went to a liberal arts college that was very accepting of using modern media in traditional classes as well as basing classes on modern media. For example, I took a class on comics one winter. I

[Purkake]

Torment's main strength comes from the writing, it doesn't really utilize the medium to it's full capacity nor is it a good showcase for it. Portal intertwines the story and gameplay very well and makes for a much more unique experience for someone who has never played a video game in their life(beyond tetris and solitaire).

[Syraxis]

Now if only s/he could work Torment in too.

 

I reckon the stat screen would confuse people

[entrerix]

i agree with that statement re torment v portal. torment is a great rpg/interactive book. its not the pinnacle of videogames as a unique and interactive storytelling medium.

 

portal isnt the best we'll every see, but its one of the best we have now. Its also short, free (isnt it free if you download steam on a mac or something?), and very very easy to grasp mechanically.

 

I think its the perfect stepping stone in introducing gaming into the educational space. Braid would be an ok choice too, but it is very dependent on your game knowledge, as so many of its great moments are built on super mario bros. Also, its story is a bit too chaotic. and its frankly too hard for it to be required material.

 

World of Goo would be a fantastic choice for exploring themes in a literature course or a film course, sort of a tetris meets existentialism meets bergman if you will.

 

another great thing about portal is it can easily be finished in a weekend (or even a single night), making it very accessible to someone who is willing to try a "videogame" but not willing to put a ton of time into the experiment.

 

I really hope this pays off big time and starts gathering more steam (pun unintended) so games can be pushed in a more meaningful way towards education/educated discourse.

 

 

tldr: go abbot!

Edited August 24, 2010 by entrerix

[Purkake]

Wow, you're jumping off the deep end there, Maria

 

Good post, I agree that "self vs social performance" in Portal is perhaps looking too deep into it and good point about Psychonauts as well. There are still quite a few things to look for in Portal, but a lot of them would benefit greatly from playing some other games as well. You could discuss the identity of the player vs the identity of the character, video games in general with the sharp contrast between the lab and the backrooms, maybe GLaDOS as a character(she does have a surprising amount of depth) and probably a whole bunch of more abstract liberal arts-y things.

 

It does seem like a pretty good choice for starting an interesting conversation, at least.

Edited August 24, 2010 by Purkake

[Maria Caliban]

Wow, you're jumping off the deep end there, Maria

 

You're probably right.

 

[Purkake]

Don't get me wrong, having an intelligent discourse about a non-Bioware/Obsidian/Bethesda game is a welcome change.

[entrerix]

i dont know if bethesda and intelligent discourse really belong in the same sentence.

 

omgsomuchzing!

[Tale]

The display of alternate morality systems and conflicting culture shift in Morrowind...

[entrerix]

I don't remember a morality system in morrowind beyond "pay me money and your bounty goes away"

 

unless you mean the cultural morality in the backstory. but if you do then we might as well discuss a book since the only intelligent aspects of the game are not gameplay related.

 

of course i could well be wrong...

[Purkake]

Gamasutra has a pretty interesting analysis of Portal as well.

 

And there was some tech demo of Bethesda's Radiant AI, where they gave everyone distinct objectives which lead to them having to tune it down for the final game when a peasant killed someone because he needed to rake leaves, but didn't have a rake. You could write a pretty interesting paper on that as well...

 

EDIT: Here's the article.

Edited August 24, 2010 by Purkake

[entrerix]

i wish they would have left an option to keep that version of the AI. it could have been a very interesting/disturbing world.

 

npc kills man for rake.

 

you click to speak with him intending to ask him about the murder

 

your only response "I saw a mudcrab the other day..."

 

 

 

very disturbing indeed.

[Niten_Ryu]

We used Darkseed on art class in mid 90's, with other Gigers work like Aliens and traditional art. Most were just happy to play Amigas and PCs, but IMO that was a fun class.

[Tigranes]

I don't think the profs would intend Portal to be a comprehensive manifestation of Goffman's theory, that's why they read the book first. In fact, the kind of critique Maria provided is probably exactly what they're looking for from their freshment students - the whole idea is about provoking criticial thought. In that respect I think it is a very good choice and well done.

 

It's probably also a big factor that the game doesn't require a lot of game literacy to play, in terms of setting (fantasy) or mechanics.

[Volourn]

NWN has been used in schools already. Not surprising other games have and will continue to be used. This is 2010, not 1910.

 

I have little doubt when movies were first started to be used in classrooms it was a 'culture shock' by old geezers as well.

Edited August 24, 2010 by Volourn

[HoonDing]

i dont know if bethesda and intelligent discourse really belong in the same sentence.

 

omgsomuchzing!

http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/foru...r-scrolls-lore/

[entrerix]

i think i just threw up in my mouth a little...

 

whats the ratio of leprechauns to unicorns!!!

 

tell me!!!!!!!

[Malcador]

Glad I went into Engineering.

[Purkake]

Glad I went into Engineering.

Do you really hate Portal that much?

[Enoch]

Concern: This is probably the only college textbook that has a chance of inducing motion sickness in a certain percentage of the class.

[Tale]

And there was some tech demo of Bethesda's Radiant AI, where they gave everyone distinct objectives which lead to them having to tune it down for the final game when a peasant killed someone because he needed to rake leaves, but didn't have a rake. You could write a pretty interesting paper on that as well...

 

EDIT: Here's the article.

Sounds like an average game of Dwarf Fortress. Tantrum spirals, nobles, useless dorfs. It's touted as a feature.

 

Urist McGlassmaker is possessed!

*I have nothing to make glass items*

*he eventually gets melancholic, stops drinking, and dies of thirst*

Urist McGlassmaker's wife is throwing a tantrum!

She throws a switch, drowns half the fort.

 

Urist McDrowned's best friend is throwing a tantrum!

He attacks a nearby baby!

 

 

Urist McBaby'sMother is throwing a tantrum!

Edited August 25, 2010 by Tale

[HoonDing]

Some Bethesda games could surely be used for marketing courses.

[entrerix]

or maybe criminal psychology 101?

 

npc 1 has no rake and no money. npc 1 wants to go raking.

 

npc 2 has both.

 

npc 1 kills him, takes the rake and leaves the money.

 

npc 1 now wants to buy beer.

 

npc 3 has money. npc 3 is standing over npc 2's dead body.

 

npc 1 kills npc 3, takes his money, and goes and buys beer.

 

here is your final exam: what the **** is wrong with npc 1? you have 1 hour.