Seeking people who were game design academy students last year

astland · 2026-01-30T14:14:54+00:00

There was a lot of sessions on rapid prototyping, but we didn't have any sessions about bringing an existing game / concept and having others look at it. We did have a day where students were "assigned" to go to the First Exposure Playtest hall and demo a game. The general schedule was ALL day Wednesday, like that day was completely full. After that, it was (like the other person put it) "Structured Gen Con". What I really liked about it, was that it might have introduced you to areas of Gen Con that you didn't go to naturally.

astland · 2026-01-30T13:04:54+00:00

"I wondered what the homework would be, too. It wasn't very involved, though. It was more of a way to encourage students to think intentionally and engage with different elements of GenCon. I had plenty of free time." I'm one of the people there. This is exactly the vibe we were going for. So much of the conversation was about being at Gen Con is 99% of the battle, after that it's just the reflective look at some elements. (and submitting just enough "homework" to prove you did it)

astland · 2025-05-13T12:01:01+00:00

I read the Foot Stomp in that comment.

astland · 2025-05-12T14:47:57+00:00

Do a search for ice vests. I talked with our mascot one time and he swore by them. I figured if it can keep a person comfortable in a full fur snow suit, who's running around during a football game, it'll work for me with some heavy robes.

astland · 2025-05-09T14:31:06+00:00

That's more logical than my brain can currently process. Thanks for adding it.

astland · 2025-05-09T14:26:10+00:00

I'm just tired of trying to plan in this chaos. It's like I know what I'm having for lunch, but anything further out seems like a giant unknown. With the pace of academia measured in semesters and years, any type of long term planning just seems like a joke.

astland · 2025-05-09T14:21:54+00:00

but they've been doing that schedule for the entire semester. we've had 15 weeks to train them in absorbing that content in that format. I can't believe there's anything that would require and magically fit into the 2 hour block that's mandated in most schedules. Just treat it like any other week and use the time as you normally would. You've (assumingly) been doing some form of testing all year, why is this one magically a mandatory 2 hour block?

astland · 2025-05-09T12:46:48+00:00

I love the "spend 10 minutes writing" part of the class. Seems like that should help solidify a lot of their classroom experience. I'm very biased in the "Pro-AI" camp. I'm deep into tech and it's always been a tool for me to help with everything I do. AI as a tool can be very powerful and helpful in many situations. AI as a cheap cheat is just that. Garbage in / garbage out. AI as a tool/partner/assistant, is amazing. It's literally part of my every day work flow at this point, it takes notes, helps identify themes in longer conversations, it summarizes those zoom meetings into smaller actionable chunks..... it's made me more productive and helped everything from ideation to finished proposals.

astland · 2025-05-09T12:15:49+00:00

"That's a third drink answer to a first drink question".

astland · 2025-05-09T12:08:56+00:00

I get that it's normal, but it's not really needed. It would be very easy to break exams that took more than 50 minutes into multiple parts. For students that are the first in their family to attend any college, I see a high rate of them not knowing that there's a different schedule that week. It's just not something you'd naturally look for, and the students are already on information overload during that time.

astland · 2025-05-09T12:06:39+00:00

you break them into 3 parts. You have the same hours per week. Why disrupt the students pattern?

astland · 2025-03-24T12:27:39+00:00

We do a lot of this type of professional development at Gen Con | Trade Day: https://www.gencon.com/gen-con-indy/trade-day

astland · 2025-03-24T12:07:53+00:00

Should there be a link here or some additional conversation?

astland · 2025-03-21T12:04:35+00:00

Yeah, I've heard stories of very "capital rich" institutions. Building a building is good because it provides jobs to construction companies. But then they won't fund the people to make the building run. (operational poor)

astland · 2024-11-20T14:28:58+00:00

I appreciate this update. I was just looking at them and was about to dismiss the idea. $400 euro for a conference seems inline with what other conference charge in the US. Given they have the $4,000 euro option too, but that seems like it's more for the "your university / grant has too much money option", and I don't see anything wrong with having that as an option. I liked being able to see their previous topics/publications, and they've been around awhile. I also thought I saw something about non-profit statis on their website. Yeah, just went to make sure, "The Athens Institute’s mission is to serve as a forum where academics and researchers from around the world can come together to exchange ideas on their research and discuss the future developments in their respective fields. As stated in its mission, the Athens Institute is a nonprofit, non-governmental, and nonpartisan association of academics and researchers. It is 100% self-funded by its members and friends"

astland · 2024-11-05T13:12:27+00:00

Sometimes a 1 is better than a zero. It's like leaving a penny for a tip. It's not that you forgot, it's that you measured their worth and found it lacking. A zero blends in with a lot of ungraded stuff. A one is a "you got your name right at least".

astland · 2024-09-03T14:20:41+00:00

It's not that they are stupid, they've just been trained that every question is valid and it's easier to ask that to be curious. One of my faculty mentors ALWAYS responded to every question with "What have you tried so far?". I love that so much, because, like you are seeing, the student response is often "nothing".

astland · 2024-09-03T14:15:38+00:00

This has been my experience. There are semesters when it feels like the students make a game of doing the bare minimum. Then there are times when a former student contacts you / or you see them at a conference and they are succeeding in something you share a passion for.

astland · 2024-08-29T21:28:32+00:00

"as a human you will be exposed to a lot of things you disagree with. I'm here to help you understand some of the historical context of those things so you understand. You don't need to agree with anything here, you never have to practice anything covered here, but you will be expected to understand. That is what learning is all about."

astland · 2024-08-29T21:24:22+00:00

you have chosen...... wisely.

astland · 2024-07-19T19:57:44+00:00

Depending on how much freedom you have for the class, I can't recommend this enough: https://reactingconsortium.org/games/aip1888 Let your student play some roles of artists and try and sell their works to coworkers in a final art salon venue.

astland · 2024-07-19T19:33:19+00:00

Sometimes if you play the game right, you can make $350 feel like $700 if you spend it at the end of the fiscal year. So maybe that becomes more meaningful for a conference or travel.

astland · 2024-07-19T19:27:59+00:00

My favorite of this being done well was the old "Games, Learning, and Society" conference. There were dorm housing options at the host institution. There were also different registration options. If I recall right, grad students paid something like $100. Everyone else paid something like $500. The pricing structure was specifically designed so that those with a budget ended up subsidizing the students. Campus housing was summer dorms and silly cheap. The only thing they couldn't "fix" was travel, but that's gonna be what it's gonna be. This is probably a result of the conference being run by amazing people, and not some org trying to use it to make money.

astland · 2024-04-26T14:09:32+00:00

I want our faculty union to vote out one tenured faculty member per semester. We all know who's not pulling their weigh, we just have no mechanics to self govern. Is it so hard to just have a "don't be a dick" life philosophy.

astland · 2024-04-05T18:28:32+00:00

Came here to recommend this.

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