Games without Pain: easy to use game engines as teaching, learning, and creative tools

December 13, 2008 · No Comments · Gaming & Education

Listen to the Episode: Games Without Pain

At Create World 2008 Shane Henderson and Mark McMahon (Edith Cowan University) lead a hands-on workshop on the 3D game engine Sauerbraten, an open source first person shooter game that allows for "inworld" editing, with no background in programming, artwork, or game development required.

Cat Hope spoke to Shane during the workshop, looking to the potential of the platform outside of the gaming realm and at ways to break out from gaming’s standard ‘shooter’ and ‘monster’ models. Shane sees Sauerbraten as much more than a game – to him it is an enabling space which eliminates techno-barriers and empowers creativity.

Participants comments
Listen to the commentary: Gaming … Consider the Possibilities!

Luke Toop (University of Adelaide) also has some interesting ideas about Sauerbraten, and in this commentary talks to Kate Foy about its educational uses. Luke emphasise the importance of a modifiable environment, pointing to the fact that some old games continue to be used simply because they can be modified. Barbie Worlds, Romeo & Juliet, musical improvisation, the role of online collaboration – Luke and Kate range over some very different topics in this conversation. Listen to this podcast episode and see how they all fit together.