Haunted House Games

I decided to look for some Haunted House games after looking at Hidden Spirits on the History Channel's page. It made me think this genre might be good for a game on the spaces within the library (we recently had students do a video on this) or for the campus history archives game. Here are two of the good ones I found:

Haunted House game sponsored by K-Mart
Haunt the House

New Educational Games

I have found some new online games that have inspiration potential. I am currently looking for some ideas (online and real-world) for an archives game for our Scholar's Program during the college's bicentennial celebration next year. The goal is to use college history and archival materials (esp. pictures) to create a fun game.

The first I found is a state puzzle game called Place the State, where there are three modes of playing. In the beginner model, it's a puzzle where the player must drag the states into their correct location on a silhouette map of the US and once a state is placed it sticks. In the intermediate mode, the placed states disappear. In the advanced mode, the states disappear AND you have to name the capital of the state. Everything is timed. I'm thinking this could be adapted to college history where we give students an old map of the campus and they have to place buildings that don't exist anymore, and maybe answer a question about them.

The second game is called State that Plate. The player has a tray of state names and then license plates appear on a conveyor belt and you have to drag the state name to the right plate before it runs off the screen. You have up to 10 misses to get points. We could have archival pictures scroll by and students have to match a label or name to the picture.

Still alive

I have great intentions for getting back to this blog soon. My almost-nine-month-old is keeping me busy, as is being down a librarian at work. I have so much gaming material to post from ACRL, which has given me a boost of creative energy and excitement about games, though I wish I could also get some time to process what I learned and try out some new ideas as well. I can't complain, the baby is wonderful and I still love my job. I just saw this post from the Swiss Army Librarian about gamifying overdue fines, just as Sweden is starting to gamify speed limits. I like the idea of turning something as dull as overdue fines or speed limits into a simple game. I think a lot of insurance companies are doing this for good drivers and while it's not game-like fun, I still enjoy my $50 check each year. One other thing I've been thinking about as a new mom... I'm looking forward to becoming more familiar with children's games as Patrick gets older. It will be great to start out with the really simple games and see if they can be applied to library instruction. He's already into at least one game, but I haven't yet figured out how to use peek-a-boo in the classroom. I just don't think 18-22-year-olds will think it is near as hysterical as a baby does. And just because I have mentioned Patrick, and because it's my first post since he has been born, here's a totally gratuitous picture. I have no intention of turning this into a mommy blog, but reserve the right to mention him as it does relate to games.