Thursday, November 29, 2012

The Sims 3: Everyday Life

The characters in The Sims 3 do things that people do in the real world.  They spend quality time with each other, go on dates, visit different buildings throughout the city, hang out with their friends, visit each other's homes, ride to school on the school bus, take their cars to work.



They fish, go grocery shopping, have children in the hospital, cook, eat, play computer games, watch television, make their beds, disagree, take baths and showers, brush their teeth and wash their faces.


 

The creators of this video game did not leave anything out as far as keeping this game as close to reality as possible.  They have traits the we have in real life.  The son paints, the daughter cooks, they write novels and short stories.  There are a lot of things that a person playing this video game can relate to on a daily basis.

This is a picture of the son painting; he is a Master of the Arts and Music.

This is a picture of the family swimming in their swimming pool.

The fireplace caught on fire one day.

This is when they had their first child and the father was teaching him how to walk and talk.





Monday, November 19, 2012

The Sims 3: The Working World

My Sims have completed their goals as teenagers and are now ready to grow up, pick their careers, and start working.  The Sims, just like in the real world, the characters get to pick their career goals.  The Sims that I have chosen to play with each have different lifetime goals.  The parents chose to a become professional athlete and a executive power broker.  The mother rides to work in a limousine every day.


The dad wears a tuxedo to work everyday, unless he has a game to perform.




The children chose to become a five star chef, international super spy, world renown surgeon, and master of the arts and music.  Each child reached their lifetime goals and continue to work everyday reaching higher raises and promotions.


They chat with their co-workers and bosses, and do well on their jobs, just like we do in real life.  

Sunday, November 18, 2012

The Sims 3: The Transition from Baby to Young Adult

I have been playing The Sims 3 almost every day now.  My Sims have multiplied to a total of six, a mother, a father, a son, a daughter, and twin daughters.  They started out as babies, being taken care of to toddlers, learning how to talk and walk, to adolescence going to school to teenager.  The four kids were in school attending Monday through Friday every week.



There are responsibilities required of the teenagers as students.  They have homework to complete every day before the next school day.  The homework completion and/or negligence affects their moods.  The majority of the time when the students came home from school or went over to a friend's house, they got started on their homework, unless one of their moods were low, such as energy, hunger, or hygiene.  The students' life spans as teenagers lasted as long or short as you desired to control them.  I started out with their lives' spans lasting up to a little over 200 days.  But as the students came home from school, doing homework began to tie up a lot of their free time.  Neither teenager worked.  They only had time to do their homework, take showers and/or baths, eat, and sleep.  They did not have enough time to socialize with their peers.  The parents were making enough money so the kids did not have to work.  I focused more on building up the skills of the students and deciding on their lifetime goals.  So, after spending enough time on them as teenagers, they grew up to young adults. 

This is a picture of the school they attend everyday, do schoolwork and meet friends.



You can see in the picture above the son is working on homework and his homework skill is improving by the symbol above his head.  The picture below shows all of the children and a friend working on their homework after a full day of school.  



The teenagers have grown to another stage of the Sims life.  They are now young adults on their ways to developing and redefining their skills towards their lifetime goals.  I had picked goals for each child.  The older son, Chevy, has a lifetime goal of artist/musician.  They second child, Nissan has a lifetime goal of becoming a world-renowned surgeon.  Acura, one of the twin daughters has a lifetime goal of becoming an international spy, while her fraternal sister, Toyota has a lifetime goal of becoming a chef.



Thursday, November 8, 2012

Free Games Friday Frog Fractions

Frog Fractions
I enjoyed playing Frog Fractions because it is educational.  I had to utilize my hand-eye coordination.  I also had to keep my focus on what I was doing with the frogs and the insects.  This game will help with teaching students their colors and fractions all wrapped up in fun.  I would recommend this game for the lower elementary students.  I give this game high rankings for the sake of education!

Atticus and Boy Electric
I did not understand the concept of Atticus and Boy Electric.  I do not know if I had to read the scripts to advance in the game.

Flipping Dead
This game is hilarious.  Flipping Dead teaches respect for others and facing consequences.  I would like this game in maybe the Kindergarten through 2nd grade classes.  I played both as the good guy and the bad guy.

Organicraft
I appreciate this game.  Organicraft helps with memorization.  I would like to use this game for educational purposes.  It is also rewarding when you complete one level and move on to the next.  Each level in this game gets more difficult, which means exercising more skills.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Free Games Friday Minimalist

Snazzle
I enjoyed going back to my video game roots with these games on this free Website.  I started out playing Snazzle which I thought was fun.  It reminds me of the video game that I have played numerous times on my old Nokia cell phone, Snake.  I was able to move up quickly through the levels until reaching level 5.  I was confused as to how to move back and forth to clear the white squares.  I tried to complete this task about three times before moving on to the next game.

Lud Wig von Beatdown
Playing Lud Wig von Beatdown would be fun if I did not lose as much as I did.  One thing that I did not like is how I had to press on the keys of my laptop.  I was more worried about damaging my laptop than actually enjoying the game.  This game is not as memorable as the other four games. 

No, Birdie No!
I feel the same as I did about Lud Wig von Beatdown as I do about No, Birdie No!  I did not like having to hold the keys down on my laptop because I was in fear of them getting stuck.  But I did have three scores of 650, 558, and 612.  I did not see any other high scores, so I do not know if those were good scores or not.

Too Many Ninajs
 This game reminded me of a childhood game I would watch my brothers and cousin play, Ninaj Gaiden.  I wanted to keep playing Too Many Ninajs more than the other four games.  This game has a very basic concept, especially because the player was not able to move around.  I learned a trick while playing which was to hold the sword and the items the ninajs were throwing would reflect off of it and hit them.

Typing Karaoke
I was not able to play this game because it would not load on the computer I was playing on.  I will try to play this game on a different computer.  


Thursday, November 1, 2012

Chapter Seven Blog

This chapter touched on some good areas pertaining to education and involving students in learning.  It is important to design video games that are educational and keeping up with the fast-changing field.  It is interesting to study video games and incorporate that in learning.  Some of the skills taught in school systems are needed in understanding video games such as visual arts, computer science, cognitive psychology, architecture, and animation.

Learning from play of video games give students and teachers the opportunity to gain knowledge freely.  It opens avenues for teachers and students to come to one accord about information that will one day be applied in their every day lives.