Thank you everyone

Thank you everyone for participating in this gaming project. Thank you students for staying with us although we had some problems. Thank you readers for following this blog.

This project is now over and we’ll start planning the next one in the autumn. We will consider the feedback from the students and try to make this course better. Have a nice summer everyone.

CIV

Because we didn't got the multi player game working, we needed to play single player. So I decided to choose Russia as my country. Now I'm planning to build the greatest army in the universe. I really don't give a damn about my folk. After I have developed my army as much as it needs to, I'm just simply going to kill everyone in the earth and see what happens.

So umm yeah. There's my house. No more no less. Pretty simple and easy to build. There are also a fireplace and a secret gave (that isn't so secret anymore) in it.

Final words...

So...
I think this was a refreshing course. It was kinda nice to have much a different course, among every else.
I think Minecraft worked well with the course, because it's such a creative game. It's simple enough to learn, but complex enough to keep you interested. Only thing that I think held it back in this course, was the multiplayer. I didn't really enjoy, when the server mode changed from creative to survival, just because there was really no "survival" there, and I personnally don't enjoy gathering all the recourses, if there's not even a little bit survival in it: monsters, hunger etc.
I didn't really like CIV and maybe that's why I don't think it should be in this course. It's much harder to learn than Minecraft, and quite frankly, I dont think it's as fun.
Overall, I think this course was fun, screwing around in Minecraft and all that stuff. But there's still a lot to improve. I think you could do much different games on this course. Example: play a game that's heavily story-driven, and the students have to write an essay about it.

Farewell

Minecraft build

So in Minecraft, I built this.
I went with somewhat of a Ancient Greek architecture. It has piston-doors and inside it has a little fountain and a testificate.
It's not much, but I have build some other stuff in my world, but they are mostly based around screwing around with redstone, so I wont show them now.

Minecraft bonus

Here is what me and my friends managed to build in Minecraft. We made up our own server and started to build different kind of things. The woodhouse in front of picture is enchantmen room. The lava building behind the enchantment room is supposed to be a beacon but I think it should be little bit bigger to work. We have also our own ship where we can spend our time. The big tree in middle of picture is house, believe it or not! I found out that Minecraft is enjoyable game and I like it very much so we decided to spend our time in good way and do lots of homework because in this course homework was actually pretty fun!

Difficulties to victory

This course started in a messy situation. Things didn't work at all and everyone were quite annoyed. I really wanted to play civilization on multiplayer but we didn't make it. It was a huge disappointment. But in the end this course was fun and I enjoyed it. I think that in next year this will be huge succeed! This course improved my english skills little bit which is a miracle because my english sucks. :)

Teemu

Civilization continues

I told in my first post about civilization that I plan to destroy Roman empire. I did that quite easily because I had war elefants which are as good as pretorians. Now I put my attention in Greece empire because they are in my way of dominate. I am the best in research too because I balanced well with economy during war time. My civilization holds western -, middle - and eastern europe and soon the whole Europe when I destroy Greece empire.

Teemu

Minecrafting

I didn't make it to play even this in multiplayer when other does. I think that I wasn't good enough in this course. :p 

I am really novice at minecraft so my house looks simple. And that it is. Its a small house made of bricks. And it doesn't even have the roof because its not finished. I made the house next to a lake because that place seemed fun. 

Teemu

Civilization single player

We didn't make it to play in multiplayer at this course. So I played singleplayer with German empire. I started scenario called earth. I have played it before and I really like it because it is based on true world map and empires. I chose Germany so I started in middle Europe where was fight for living space so I have planned that I destroy Roman empire before they get pretorians which are really good military unit. I still have to balance with war and peace because during war time economy gets worse and then I get far behind in research.

Teemu

Starting civ

Sadly I missed last contact lesson, so Im little bit confused what I should tell in this blog. So I started the CIV and first thing in my mind was getting in to war with someone. So first time I played it and got straight into war. That didnt work out so well. Then i needed to get new strategy. My strategy was being nice to everyone and not getting in to war with other empires. That worked out little bit better but still I think I cant play CIV without some helping guide....
Now I have few cities and lots and lots of warriors so i can start a war where I have some possibilities to win.

Civilization IV

So here is my empire at the beginning and also in the end, because I started war and now I cant expand because I didnt have enough warriors or archers to beat my enemies. I still have no clue what I should do in this game. I just keep pressing end turn button and thats how I keep going. Sadly I had to take this photo with my phone, because my computer refused to take screencapture. I still have lot of learning in this game.

Feedback about the course and everything

Hey everyone!

I think this course was a success at the end. At the beginning things were all messy but after the beginning everything got organized and clear and everyone learned how to play these two games. Next year, if you do the course again, play games that are newer so people will get more excited. One thing with these two games was that if you hadn´t played them before, it was hard to learn by ourselves and it took a while. Another tip for the next year is that make up more meetings so people will get to know faster how to play the games.
About teachers and the mentors we had i would have two words. I was really amazed how professional they all were playing these games (except Sanna) haha :D (just kidding lol). I wish a great summer for you all who are reading this, enjoy your time and party hard!!

Best regars,

Aleksi the King

Feedback about the course

On my opinion this course has been fun. I think this course was way easier to the people who had played these games before. We also had some problems with both of the games so at the beginning it wasnt so easy to start because I had no clue what to do and how because I had to do everything by myself. In school grades this course would be 8. Without problems and maybe by changing games to something else it would be better.
In civilization I still dont have my own empire because everytime I start new one it gets ruined by other empires. Maybe I should have been played with easy difficulty!
In Minecraft I learned a lot pf different things. Before the course started I tought that Minecraft is not a good game. But after I had played it for a while I found it really funny.

Civilization: The Fall of Legendary Tokugawa

So I advanced a little bit, and I decided I'd start a war with my dear neighbour.
I don't have any troops, so I'm in a lot of trouble.
I don't really like this game, and I don't really know how to play it.
But I think I did pretty good.

Civilization: The Legend of Tokugawa

So I’m playing as Japan at 825 BC and I've got a pretty good start. I'm still learning, but I think I’ll do quite well.

As far as my plans go:

1.   Expand and evolve my civilization.

2.   Be friendly to everyone.

3.   After they think that I am their friend, kill them.

I guess we will see how that turns out.

Final words...

This road is about to end. It was a different experiment and almost fun. We had some difficulties with game programs and to be honest anything didn't work. At least we had something to do at other classes if we didn't feel like studying. The positive things about the course was that it didn't take as much work as the other courses. But there was a lot more bad things than good. We didn't get the chance to play CIV 4 online at all and minecraft missions weren't the best possible choices. Maybe with some time and more improvement it can be a fun time for the next group that tries this course.

Endgame

So the course was refreshing. Writing the blog wasn't bad since its posts didn't have to be so long. And it was nice to get to play Minecraft with people even if it didn't work at home and Civilization was a nice change as a homework even if we got to play single player only. Even the meetings were nice because time passed on quickly during them.

So it was a nice course for a change. Maybe next time the games will work properly. If there will be a next time.

Feedback about the course.
Gaming thing was something new and refreshing to school, but unfortunately due some technical difficulties and human errors, its full potential couldn't be used. I didn't like Civilization so it didn't quite catch up with me but Minecraft was something I've played before so it was nice. Problem with that, was that you could only play it in school and after creative mode was changed to survival, I kind of lost my motivation to build.
All in all it was 4/5, would recommend ( after the difficulties have been fixed).
Kthxbye

Civ IV

this is where i am at now. Almost there! I am almost won the scenario this is awsome.

civilisation IV

right now doing custum scenario with only one rule for the victory. It is defeat all opponents.

So, I kept pressing buttons and now I'm at 1395AD and I think I have the most powerful empire at the moment. Expansions are proceeding and partnering with other empires has gone well. I still have no idea what I'm doing.

Civilization IV
I started as the English empire, but I still have no clue what i'm doing...
I would have liked to get some kind of introduction before we started, because I haven't played Civilization before and it's feels a bit difficult at first. I'll try to push on and post my about my campaign more later.

CIV whit lvl noble

So we tried to play the multiplayer version by emailing the game to each others but it has failed... So our ''mission'' was to get a screen capture and play the game to little further. I played it whit single player and this is what I managed to do. Well I didn't get to do anything... I tried a little harder lvl and playing peaceful but I didnt get anything done because of the barbarians. I made about ten villages but all of them was destroyed by them. So I got mad and stopped playing. It's a shame that we weren't able to play the multiplayer version but singlepalyer version is pretty fun too.

Back with Civilization

Back again in civilization. Had to start a new game but played bit longer now. I'm still playing as Greek with Alexander as a leader.

So I had a good start with more experience than before and had an excellent starting position. I quickly expanded with my second city in couple of minutes and kept expanding quickly. I researched all leading to machinery and other things. Only religion was researched later because I didn't think religion is so important in start. I adopted Christianity when I founded it. 

I'm playing the map Terra and I have discovered all of my opponents. I'm not really trading with them just focusing to achieve weapon superiority and possibly rushing to nukes and take down at least most of them. But I'm not sure if I will nuke them because it will take much more time and slow my process otherwise. So maybe I will just try win space race because I'm already bit superior with my army having gunpowder and grenades at my disposal. I'm even more advanced with my science experiences so it is looking quite good. Maybe I'm playing with bit too easy difficulty but oh well...

Mediamaailmat-survey

Thanks for the gaming session today, it was interesting to try something a bit different this time! It's all valuable research data, too.

As I mentioned, I'd kindly ask you to fill the following short survey. The data is processed anonymously, so feel free to be honest ;)

Here's the link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JT3PFPN

Thanks in advance!

Fresh winds on our gaming course

Today, we tried something different on the course, by playing objectively. We were supposed to collect resources to launch a spaces shuttle. I have had previous experience on these types of game modes and this was also inspiring compared to the normal block destroying. We didn't proceed that much but we got a good start. I should get into Civilization more before the course ends.

Civilization life

Hello everybody!

The world where I play is called "Terra" and the civilization which I chose was the Japanese empire and their leader is Tokugawa.

This is my village, I´ve built a couple of boats (trireme), workers, warriors and a lighthouse is coming up fast. Also I´ve trained alot of skills like mining and construction, mysticism, etc. I think it´s the classical era where I´m living with my japanese people. I think this game is really challenging for the guys who hasn´t played any games like this before because you don´t really know where to start and what to do first and what should you start training. I just tried everything and learned from that way. I hope the multiplayer thing would have worked because single player mode is kind of boring comparing to multiplayer :( I´m really excited to see where you guys are going on this game and how great your empires are comparing to mine.

Thanks,

Aleksi

Last contact lesson

Hey,

I've been really amazed by the quality of your buildings and the lack of English in communication. Take it how ever you will :)

On Monday 20th, we will have our last session. We'll play through a scenario this time, so there will be more structured game-play this time around. Our scenario will take place in a post-Apocalyptic world, and we will try to salvage what can be salvaged.

Thanks for the pictures, some of them have been featured in a couple of conferences. The lava-lamp by Leevi, Antti and Joonas, for example, was shown to a group of American game-designers.

We'll update your game clients too, to a more recent version of Minecraft on Monday.

Have a nice weekend!

Working hard

Hey all!

We have had some server problems with Minecraft. I have built a very simple house where I can sleep and a warehouse where I can keep my stuffs. Its been very very fun learning how to craft different things in Minecraft. Like I told you at my first post I have never before played Minecraft. I have died few times after I came from underground where I was mining and lost lot of iron and coal. But today I found my first diamonds! It may sound stupid but im proud I have found diamonds! Now i can do something fun with my diamonds.

In civilisation I havent been so active because we have some problems with there too. But I have learned something in CIV too. On my opinion Minecraft is much more better game than CIV. Its been fun in this course playing with friends and alone.

Here is my small house and warehouse in the background.

server problems

this week i had alot problems connecting to the server at school and  so i really didn't do much on minecraft. I have played little civ4 and thinked about stradegys for the e-mail game if it would start soon.

Connection problems?

Hey everyone!

I think we have some kind of problems with the minecraft server system? It´s not working at school at all, it wont connect to the server, so I´ve been playing in different server and I finished with a nice but simple house. I think I´ve learned the basics quite fast and I´m getting better everytime I play. With Civilization our group have quite big issues, I think the turn is still stuck on Teemu, and I haven´t even played the first round so I´m getting annoyed with the whole thing with Civ. It seems to be a nice game tho. Maybe we should have another meeting soon with the group so we could get things moving on? However, things are going great with minecraft without counting the connection problems on school server. So teachers, please make up a meeting soon, so we can get things organized!

-Aleksi 

(Im playing with my own computer, and i changed the texture pack so it looks different than playing with the school laptop)

Week 3

First I have to complain about the Minecraft server system. It's is not working (yet?) at home, and I don't have time to play it at school. However i have builded two scale models; Burj Khalifa, the highest building in the world, located i Dubai, And the replica of the World Trade Center Twin Towers. Both are quite small buildings, but since the server doesn't work outside the school, I haven't had much time to play.
Our Civilization game is stuck on Valtteri, and I haven't even played the first round... Im getting real frustrated right now. But here is the screenshots:

No progress

Things haven't advanced with the games, since Minecraft's server doesn't work at home and Civilization's save hasn't been sent forward, thanks to Valtteri.
I've been playing on another server since the school's server is inaccessible at home.
Civilization has turned out to be a bit of a fail, because the emailing system.

More minecraft

Last week  I haven't got a clue what I was going to build. I was thinking of building a ship that would have been on water but instead I started to help Leevi in his project and in the end I was helping him to make it complete. You can see the picture of the building we made from Leevi's own Minecraft post from last week. We made a building which had water walls and we thought that it was a bit boring so we cowered the whole thing whit glass and putted some lava inside it. So basically it is a huge house whit water falls and inside it, there is a lot of lava. We made a little farm outside the house where there are some cows and next to them is a diamond covered swimming poll. So that's it from this week and next week we will build something new!

Dear classmates, teachers and bloggers

Hi all!

So I finally got into this blog and saw your amazing posts and buildings you´ve built in Minecraft. I´m just a rookie player in Minecraft and I really dont have a clue how to play it but I´m learning fast! Couple times I´ve tried to play the game in our multiplayer server but it comes up with a big error. I got in yesterday and started with some basics (walking around, digging, etc). It seems to be a little bit different game than the games I´ve played before but I like it alot! Next post of mine will be nice, you´ll be amazed for sure!

Feel free to comment and give me some tips for the later challenges I will face on Minecraft! About Civilization, I´m trying to learn the basics and build some kind of village but it is a kind of hard game if you haven´t played it before!

Best regards,

Aleksi

Getting started with minecraft

The Lava Lamp

By Leevi, Antti and Joonas










So it is glass palace filled with lava and water with a pool and cow farm outside or simply lava lamp.

It started when I thought about making a huge water fountain.
When I had placed some pillars of wood Antti came and asked me what was I doing I told him I was building water fountain and he started to help me out. When the woodblocks were placed Joonas came up after problems with getting minecraft working and started working with us. After we got the water flowing correctly we thought that it looked bit dull so we decided to but glass around it so it would look more like a building. Then we decided to make it a lava lamp so we filled it with lava from within and made a spot to enter the lamp and see the lava inside within a little glass room. Then we just decorated it. Antti made a pool outside meanwhile I and Joonas decorated the surroundings and inside then we bred some cows outside and put up fences to keep them there and it was done.

Baby steps

The first weeks of playing have been quite bumby to say the truth. The servers haven't worked on my computer and i've had to satisfy with the offline servers. On oflline servers on the other hand i have had plenty to do. I got to modern age on Civilization and dominated the world mainly with war, and in Minecraft I have been doing research on redstone and how it works. I have created many contraptions and hopefully in the future I'll get better at creating them. It's quite interesting since it's pretty similar to the way how electricity works.

Hopefully I'll get past my baby steps and get on track by getting to play online. Then I'll finally get on the bigger project.

Minecraft experience

> join server
> no creative
> walk two steps
> suddenly fall 100m into lava
> look up and see this
> cannot die
> great job guys
> call for help
> no answer
> trapped there for 3 weeks
> had to eat my left arm in order to survive
> giving up on hope
> water comes pouring down
> it's a miracle
> swim up like an otter running out of air
> get to the surface
> sun is blinding
> can't live this way
> jump back
10/10 game of the year

Me no good with CIV

I have played Minecraft before, so I already knew how to play it, but I had never played Civilization games before. I tried learning it, but I don't quite get all the aspects of the game yet. I'm sure I'll learn it soon enough. I get the basic idea, but all the more difficult aspects of the game are still going over my head. I have never really been a fan of strategy games, so maybe that's why.  Also, I'm not so sure if the email thing that we use to play CIV is working correctly. I enjoy making all kinds of stuff in Minecraft, so I'm eager to see what our group project will be like in that game.

Getting started with civilization.

I haven't played civilization before this course started. Now I have played few quick games I'm still bad at it especially in endgame. I have only played single player now but maybe we get started with the multiplayer soon enough.
I'm probably going to try be really peaceful with my neighbors (at least in start) but still going to do a lot of defense. I'm going to be Greek with Alexander as a leader in my first move I didn't even create my city yet because didn't like the spot I was at. I'm playing with two people who haven't played the game yet so no worries.

Getting started.

I haven't really played Civ or Minecraft properly. I have just tested both but I came to a conclusion that both of them sucks. When I really started to play those games I had to change my mind with Civ. In fact it is one of the best strategy games I have ever played. But Minecraft still sucks a**.

I have been playing Civ only in singleplayer because our group somehow managed to screw up with our multiplayer game so there isn't much to tell. I've been getting used to the game and that's all. Also our Minecraft server is currently offline so we just have to wait.

Starting out

Im not familiar with Civilisation or Minecraft so its been very hard trying to learn both of the games. I have heard something about Minecraft so it havent been so hard to learn Minecraft as learning Civilisation. First time I tried to play Civilisation i had no clue what I should do. I can see something common in Age Of Empires and Civilisation and I have played Age Of Empires few times and it was way easier than Civilisation. I still need some time learning basics of both of the games before I am starting to build things in both of the games.

Learning how to play

I have been able to play only little bit of minecraft becose we can oly connect to the server when we are at school. I have also practised the CIV but our game leader hasn't started the multiplayer or iven messeged me about the multiplayer game.CIV is been very nice game to play on singleplayer but it is pritty slow pase game so the multiplayer game will last for some time.

Familiar with the game

I have played civilization 4 before this course at home. So I am familiar with the game but I haven't played the game in multiplayer but I have played it in singleplayer many times. I like civilization very much because it's the best strategy game I have played so far. I usually win with domination victory because war is salt of the game.

We haven't played civilization in multiplayer so far because we can't get it work. I started our game but my starting position was bad because there was too few of productivity.

Getting started

I am familiar of the CIV4 game but this time i will try a new way to win the game. I will start as German's ruler and i know that their special powers are attack power but I wont use it to win, only for defense. I have always won by destroying everybody else or winning the space race but now I am aiming for the political victory. I don't have much to say now because I have played only the first round but I know that i have a peaceful place to start.

Games in school

We haven't done much yet, because we had difficulties with the Civilizations' mailing system and Minecraft's 'real' servers wasn't online. I have played Minecraft since it came out in ~2009, so I'm very familiar with it. I was new to Civilization, so I had difficulties at the beginning not knowing what to do but I'm a fast learner.
I shall continue writing this blog thing when we get going with the games.

The first touch to the game

I have been playing CIV4 since we got it, the game is very good from my opinion and I have always liked to play strategy games. We haven't yet started to play the game in our group but we will soon start it.

But now to the point, so I like to play CIV4 by being the americans with the Lincoln. I have been developing my cities to higher levels and planning to research new technologies and expand my area.

When we get the game on with our group I think that its gonna be awesome.

First week

Its been quite silent so far, because the servers are offline. I have played Minecraft in single player and i also tried Civilization, but it was very hard to play since i'm not very conformable with strategy games. I'm still very eager to learn. We have couple of more experienced Civilization players in our group and I'm sure they help me out. Lets see if i get interested in playing strategy games.
           Ill be back next week when the games are up and running.

-Tukee

Update April 17: The poll is broken, it resets every night (thanks a lot Blogger!), so I added another poll that should work below the post. Sorry for the inconvenience. 

Dear all,

We had some discussion on the Minecraft page, thanks for the active people, a big thumbs up!

You guys in a couple of weeks?

We had a couple of suggestions and I've comprised a poll of them, that you can see below this text.

Please give your vote and decide what we're going to build! See you on Thursday!

Week one blog homework

This week was allaround great. The Games people play courses first group meating was this weeks Monday. At the meating we install the two games Minecraft and Civilation4 and we played tutorial map and learned to play minecraft though i allready knew how to play the game becose i have had the game two and half years now. The Civilation4 seemed very good stradegy game even though i didn´t get to play it very much.

Minecraft

Here's an introduction to one of the games we play during the course, Minecraft.

We're going to use Minecraft during the course for building projects. As you might (or might not) know, Minecraft is all about building using lego-like blocks. The blocks are harvested or mined from the world, so to build something, you need to gather the materials first. However, what we're going to build is up to you, the players. The projects will be selected by you, from suggestions that you're going to make. 

Additionally, in this blog, you will report your progress for example with videos, pictures and written reports, it's up to you! Also, the planning and decision making will take place in the blog.

If you're not familiar with the game yet, don't worry! We'll be going through the basics during the first lesson. Meanwhile, grab a headset, sit back and check out the following introduction video to get in the mood:

Welcome to follow our gaming project

This blog is the site where you can follow our game-based learning course in EFL (English as a foreign language).

This group consists of 20 high school students in a Finnish high school (Ylöjärven lukio). We will be playing two games: Civilization 4 and Minecraft. Students will write about their decisions and tactics when playing these games. The instructors will be blogging about the practical matters, pedagogy, informal learning, learning languages through games, etc.

Enjoy!