Logic games

Discusses innovations on logic games which will develop the problem solving and spatial thinking of students. Variations of existing logic games; Description of the innovated games; Advice on introducing logic games to students.

Dice and board games

Provides several alternative mathematical games. Features of the game Beetle; Mechanics of the game Ludo; Description of the game Horse Race.

Dice-rolling games : yahtzee, poker dice and others

Provides information on some dice rolling games and the social need for mathematical information on gambling. Pass the pig; Heads, tails or odds; Yahtzee.

Card games

Part III. Examines the mathematics behind common card games. Aim of the card game Happy Families; Format of the card game Old Maid; Instruction for playing the card game Rummy.

Get to know your local games shop

Provides information on the mathematical potential of commercial board games. Mastermind; Snakes and Ladders; Ludo.

The summer games

As part of a nationally funded project, we have developed and used 'games' as student centred teaching resources to enrich the capacity for design in beginning students in architecture, landscape architecture and urban design. Students are encouraged to learn inter-actively in a milieu characterised by self-directed play in a low-risk computer modelling environment. Recently thirteen upper year design students, six from Adelaide University (Adelaide, South Australia, Australia), five from Deakin University (Geelong, Victoria, Australia), and two from Victoria University, (Wellington, New Zealand) were commissioned over a ten-week period of the 2000-2001 Australian summer to construct a new series of games. This paper discusses the process behind constructing these games.

This paper discusses six topical areas:

– what is a game;
– specific goals of the summer games;
– the structure of a game;
– the game-making process;
– key findings from the production unit; and
– future directions.

RTS and RPGs : New literacies and multiplayer computer games

Technopopular culture such as computer games immerses young people in highly complex and engaging worlds, worlds in which literacy and communicative practices are significantly reconfigured and extended by the contexts in which they occur. This paper reports on a study exploring the textual engagement, pleasures and literacies entailed in playing on line computer games amongst a group of young people aged 15-16. It explores the ways in which these young people read and utilised intersections between traditional print-based text, visual images, symbols, sound, interactivity and other elements to play and make sense of a range of Real Time Strategy and Role Playing Computer Games; the place of games and gaming amongst other text-based leisure activities in their lives; and issues of interpretation, representation and response entailed in playing with real or virtual partners in cyberspace.