Are you planning to attend this year’s ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans? If so, the Games and Gaming Round Table is looking for volunteers to assist with their events:
The Games and Gaming Round Table (GameRT) needs volunteers at ALA Annual in New Orleans. Showcase your gaming skills this year at ALA Play, in the GameRT Lounge, and in the GameRT booth.
Volunteer signup forms are available at the Games In Libraries blog.
Nintendo is teaming up with Random House to release a series of Activity Books featuring characters from the consolemaker’s massive stable of franchises.
The first books in the series, Super Mario Official Sticker Book and The Legend of Zelda Official Sticker Book, were published in January. More books (including Mario Time!, Link’s Book of Adventure, and Splatoon Official Sticker Book) are scheduled to be released this Summer:
Random House Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books (U.S.), and Penguin Random House U.K. have partnered with Nintendo to publish a dynamic range of coloring and activity books for children. The books, the first two of which entered the marketplace in early January, are based on Nintendo characters and worlds, including Super Mario, the Legend of Zelda, Splatoon, and Animal Crossing.
Future books will be announced at a later date.
“Learn To Code” programs often go hand-in-hand with gaming programs, but it can be hard to figure out the best way to introduce your patrons to coding. Thankfully, American Libraries recently put together a great overview of a few different “Learn To Code” programs, specifically ones that using games to introduce coding concepts:
With computing jobs projected to grow two times faster than other fields, coding skills are an increasingly important literacy area. Libraries play a vital role in introducing these skills to their youngest community members. Coding may seem like a daunting subject for those who haven’t studied it, but there are a number of games that introduce computational concepts through play, making it easy and fun to practice computational thinking and problem solving.
This is a great article for anyone who ever wanted to learn more about Little Bits, Turing Tumble, and ScratchJr.
It’s hard to believe that two of the most-anticipated new releases of the month are a pair of cardboard construction kits from Nintendo. But here we are… the Nintendo Labo: Robot Kit and the Nintendo Labo: Variety Kit are at the top of every Switch owner’s wishlist.
When paired with the Switch’s Joy-Con Controllers, players can use the Nintendo Labo (sort for “Laboratory”) kits to build a piano, a fishing pole, an RC car, or a full-sized robot suit. A part of me still isn’t convinced that Nintendo Labo is a real product that’s really being sold by a multibillion dollar company. And yet, journalists like GamesIndustry.biz‘s Christopher Dring are convinced that Nintendo Labo’s greatest contribution to the gaming community will be in the classroom (or the library):
Labo is a series of games, and accompanying cardboard products, which work with the Nintendo Switch and its Joy-Con controllers. You can create a motorbike out of cardboard and use it to race in a game. Or a fishing rod to go fishing, or a RC car to judder and move across a flat surface. Or even a small piano. You can decorate these cardboard creations as you want, too. Hence the felt tip pens and bits of ribbon strewn throughout the room.
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The game we played contains a wealth of features, accessories and hidden modes that suggest there is a lot of enjoyment to be had. The most impressive of which might just be the game’s more ‘hardcore’ Garage mode. Garage lets gamers play around with the Nintendo Switch and its Joy-Con controllers to develop their own concepts and ideas, and even reprogram existing concepts. The Nintendo UK community manager had created his own shooting range, reprogrammed the fishing rod to control the RC Car, and even turned a Joy-Con into the world’s most expensive doorbell.
This is Labo’s undeniable strength – its an inspiration tool for a variety of different children. There’s the basics of engineering and programming taking place in here, not to mention the art and creativity that the concept prides itself on.
Nintendo Labo certainly offers a lot of creative possibilities, and even though it still sounds completely crazy, I think there’s definitely a place for the cardboard construction kits in schools and libraries.
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
Viz Media has announced plans to bring Square Enix’s novel adaptations of Nier: Automata to North America for the first time.
Both novels were written by Jun Eishima, and were based on Game Director Yoko Taro’s original story for the game. Nier: Automata: Long Story Short (Volume 1) will be published this Fall and Nier: Automata: Short Story Long (Volume 2) will be available in Spring 2019:
When alien forces invade with an army of Machines, the remnants of humanity must depend on Androids of their own design – the placid 2B and the excitable 9S – to survive.
The publisher will reveal more details about both novels at a later date.
I think it’s safe to say that the Dragon Quest franchise wouldn’t be quite as popular as it is without Akira Toriyama’s colorful character designs. Going all the way back to the franchise’s debut in 1986, the Dragon Ball creator’s unique style has helped the series stand out in the crowded RPG genre.
Late last week, Viz Media announced an English release of Dragon Quest Illustrations: 30th Anniversary Edition, an artbook that compiles a large number of Toriyama’s sketches and drawings for the series. Writing on Twitter, the publisher said that it’ll be available this December for a retail price of $34.99.
True to its title, Dragon Quest Illustrations will include an archive of Akira Toriyama’s “iconic illustrations and designs” from Dragon Quest titles released from 1986 through 2016.
Stephanie Frey recently shared some of her thoughts about attending the 2018 ALA Midwinter conference as part of the Libraries Ready to Code initiative at the Games in Schools and Libraries blog at Inverse Genius:
ALA Midwinter was overwhelming. I’d never been out to the midwest or a library convention and was unsure of what to expect besides massive amounts of people. After much consideration, I found that each of these elements led to me having a fantastic time at ALA Midwinter, helped me deal with how huge and overwhelming an experience it can be, and enabled me to get the most out of the experience.
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ALA Midwinter is an amazing event. Seeing what people are doing in their own libraries and sharing ideas with others was such an empowering experience. I came back to my own library eager to share everything I learned with my fellow staff and ready to leap into action.