When searching for games to add to your collection, it’s always good to check-in with the five major industry award shows. The following games received “Game of the Year” honors in 2019:
A complete list of all winners and nominees can be found below. Continue reading
Many libraries will use “A Universe of Stories” as their Summer Reading theme this year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing.
But you might want to check out a new post from School Library Journal by Thomas Knowlton if you’re interested in adding a little outer space to your gaming collection this Summer. He suggests three titles (one tabletop game and two video games) that would be perfect to if you want to take one small step…
Outer space is almost a perfect setting for a game: it suggests the potential for friendly (or hostile) contact with alien life, the physics of gravity, and the mechanics of managing limited resources to survive. One can trace these threads back to Spacewar! (1962) and Asteroids (1979) to modern classics such as Cosmic Encounter (2008) and FTL: Faster Than Light (2012).
Below are three titles which complement this year’s Collaborative Summer Reading theme, “A Universe of Stories,” and also emphasize, through their mechanics, the need for players to work together when faced with galactic danger.
Knowlton focuses on Mole Rats in Space, a cooperative tabletop game for all ages, as well as Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One), and No Man’s Sky (PC, PS4, Xbox One).
When searching for games to add to your collection, it’s always good to check-in with the five major industry award shows. The following games received “Game of the Year” honors in 2018:
A complete list of all winners and nominees can be found below. Continue reading
Making your own games can often be as much fun as playing the latest blockbusters from Nintendo or Microsoft. But how can you bring this creative spirit to the library? Thankfully, Karen Jensen has written a thorough exploration of “DIY Games” for School Library Journal’s Teen Librarian Toolbox:
Our teens have asked for board games to play while waiting, but a large number of the games they have requested are expensive and they often don’t accommodate a lot of players, which would mean we would be spending a couple hundred dollars on board games. I know that lots of public libraries have board games and use them in their programming, but this hasn’t been something that our administration has wanted to invest in because of the cost and issues of lost pieces, etc. Plus, we are currently investing a lot of money into our Teen MakerSpace.
But we have an excellent Teen MakerSpace so I thought, let’s address this teen request and get teens involved in making. My grand idea: we could combine the two and help teens create their own games to play. Thus, we started working with teens on DIY Games.
Jensen’s post is perfect if you’ve ever wanted to learn more about basic coding with Scratch and Bloxels, as well as a few how-to ideas for making your own tabletop games.
When searching for games to add to your collection, it’s always good to check-in with the five major industry award shows. The following games received “Game of the Year” honors in 2017:
A complete list of all winners and nominees can be found below. Continue reading
The Waccamaw Neck Branch Library (located in Pawleys Island, South Carolina) has opened registration for ShushCon 2018. ShushCon is a “games and geekery” convention that’ll be held from March 23 through March 25. Attendees will be able to try out a large number of video games, tabletop games, and escape rooms, while also taking part in events related to cosplay, anime, coding, and more.
The library will also host a Computational Thinking Games Workshop for librarians on March 23.
If you’re interested in attending ShushCon 2018, you can sign up for a free event badge with the Registration Form.
The American Library Association’s ALA Annual Conference traveled to Chicago this year, and there was quite a bit of discussion about games and gaming.
The ALA’s Games and Gaming Round Table highlighted some of the events as part of a report for the ALA’s Games In Libraries page:
This year’s ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, Illinois, was brimming with opportunities to experience and learn about games. The Games and Gaming Round Table (GameRT) started with Escape to the Library, a pre-conference about escape experiences and breakouts in the library. Attendees at this sold out event received an overview of escape rooms and breakouts, experienced three different custom breakouts, and received guidance in approaching the design process.
The Games and Gaming Round Table also looked at several other topics in their report. The ALA Play event, where game publishers and distributors demo their products, was a bit hit. As was Conference Sessions that discussed enhancing discovery of game collections and active learning through games. Sharing Sessions looked at “Teen Driven Game Programming” and “Using LibGuides to Promote Your Game Collection,” and a huge panel about “Tabletop Gaming 101” closed out the gaming portion of ALA Annual 2017.
The following games received “Game of the Year” honors from the five major industry award shows in 2016:
A complete list of all winners and nominees can be found below. Continue reading