Learning from games

Sexy Senior Citizen said:
There is a game called My Summer Car which lets you build a car from its constituent parts and race it.

And when I say "build a car," I mean it in the most boring way possible. You have to tighten individual screws, nuts, and bolts. and you have to use the right-sized tool for the job (picked a wrench that's one size too big? Sorry, fucko, get the right wrench!) When something breaks (and it will break), you have to pop the hood and examine the engine to find what's wrong (timing belt snapped, crankshaft broken, etc.) This can be incredibly inconvenient when you're in the racing portion of the game.

The reason such a genre is untapped is because, like real life, it is boring and frustrating.

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This is kind of like my idea of the restore-cars-and-race-them game, except it looks really shitty and memebait.
 
I learned more about world history, especially non-Western history, from playing Civilization than I ever did in school.

Go figure. The History curriculum in American schools is a revolving carousel of "whitey bad", "Christians bad", "muh slavery", "muh Jim Crow", and "muh Six Gorillion".
 
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A Very Big Fish said:
I use the Rocksmith 2014 version to practice guitar and bass more.

I already knew how to play going in, but it makes practicing everyday a bit less tedious.
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I used Rocksmith the same way. I would learn something from online lessons (mostly Justin Guitar) or from a friend or something along those lines and then use Rocksmith to practice on and later as an agility trainer. I don't think the tutorials are terrible in and of themselves, but there is something lacking in them, but being able to play in the arcade games or with a real song helped way more than just doing hours of chord changes at home.

If I had one suggestion for Rocksmith it would be to have an option to have the songs also be in either actual music notation or tab notation as well as their colored blocks. That would be nice, but of course isn't necessary.

A Very Big Fish said:
If you don't have a real good microphone, I'd recommend getting a USB aux cord that works with the game so its more accurate.

Not to mention, on the 2014 version at least, in addition to the songs in the game, you can also get custom songs for free if you pay for one dlc song and then mod it.
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My understanding is that the current version of Rocksmith has gone to subscription-service model, rather than a game with a bunch of songs and tutorials and mini-games with DLC. I had Rocksmith when it was on PC-ROM (and was irked that I had to install Steam to use it) but was thrilled that 2014 was available for my PS4. I'm just not all that interested in getting it as a subscription game anymore than I am in getting Windows Office as a subscription. I'm running Office 2010 on a new laptop because it does everything I need it to do and is paid for. I don't want to keep paying for it on an annual basis.

ADDED: I was thinking about it just now, and the one big flaw Rocksmith has is that it doesn't explain why you are doing something. It explains how to do something, but not why you're doing it and how it fits in with other things you've learned. And it doesn't really go into alternatives to the "by-the-book" method. For example, it says here's how you hold a pick, but not the relatives strengths and weaknesses of using a pick versus fingerpicking, or different thickness picks or using a thumbpick or fingerpicks.

I easily recommend Rocksmith, but as an adjunct to other forms of learning guitar or bass.
 
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William Murderface said:
My understanding is that the current version of Rocksmith has gone to subscription-service model, rather than a game with a bunch of songs and tutorials and mini-games with DLC. I had Rocksmith when it was on PC-ROM (and was irked that I had to install Steam to use it) but was thrilled that 2014 was available for my PS4. I'm just not all that interested in getting it as a subscription game anymore than I am in getting Windows Office as a subscription. I'm running Office 2010 on a new laptop because it does everything I need it to do and is paid for. I don't want to keep paying for it on an annual basis.

ADDED: I was thinking about it just now, and the one big flaw Rocksmith has is that it doesn't explain why you are doing something. It explains how to do something, but not why you're doing it and how it fits in with other things you've learned. And it doesn't really go into alternatives to the "by-the-book" method. For example, it says here's how you hold a pick, but not the relatives strengths and weaknesses of using a pick versus fingerpicking, or different thickness picks or using a thumbpick or fingerpicks.

I easily recommend Rocksmith, but as an adjunct to other forms of learning guitar or bass.
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Yeah, there's a new subscription version, but I still play the one from 2014 on Steam, and even though the new one apparently has an insane catalogue, I can still just mod in pretty much whatever, so I'm not gonna buy it.

I like it as a way to practice, I pretty much knew all the techniques coming into it, or I was learning them elsewhere.
 
A Very Big Fish said:
If you don't have a real good microphone, I'd recommend getting a USB aux cord that works with the game so its more accurate.

Not to mention, on the 2014 version at least, in addition to the songs in the game, you can also get custom songs for free if you pay for one dlc song and then mod it.
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Hell yeah this is great. I rushed out and ordered a USB microphone but went ahead and bought the game today to install and tried it with my acoustic guitar and my gaming headset. It works. Badass

I was using Essential Elements, which is things like "Mary Had a Little Lamb," folk song, and simplified versions of the famous parts of pop and classical songs. They're pretty much all the same no matter the instrument because they're chosen for reasons (Ode to Joy is basic bitch). Now, this I can see offers little value for learning how to sight read, but right off the bat it was asking me to do stuff like shift way down to the 12th fret and play around on all six strings. I think it's definitely just a supplementary tool but it's fun to play, I forgot that the real thing that made Guitar Hero so fun was the same feeling as singing badly along to a song.
 
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I got around the need for a USB microphone when I wanted to use an acoustic with Rocksmith by using a acoustic/electric, specifically a Fender Stratacoustic I found in a Guitar Center. I know a lot of reviewers dogged it, but I love that little guitar. It's really nice because it's thinner than a full sized acoustic and when I bought it I had a shoulder injury so it wasn't as painful to use.

What really irks me is knowing there's some 19 year olds with heroin habits out there that can shred without trying even when on a nod but even after all these years of trying I still suck. 😁
 
Maskull said:
It would instructive in that it would give you technical details as well such as why you would use lemon juice in a dish you wouldn’t expect and how acidity interacts with the recipe. Such a game could explain every possible implement you could ever possibly need in a kitchen setting.

It would be a real feat if you could load recipes into the game as well. It would hardly be fun but it would be very informative.
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I like the idea, but as you say, it's very niche.

Most home cooks never even get interested into the chemistry of cooking, because they are mostly unaware it even exists. The education you would need to even convince people it is worth buying would be huge and the market pretty small. Opportunities for in-game purchases low.

The hobbyists who are really committed to pushing their views of cooking beyond following recipes and simple common sense are rare, but they are also committed enough to buy a book. And they want to practice themselves, taste.

How can you cook a steak or chicken if you can't touch it? Thermometer is nice, but it's boring and you want to avoid it if you can or your meat will bleed. You can't judge this in a simulator. You can't adjust flavor if you don't know what you are looking for etc...

Monetizing will be extremely hard unless it's basically produced by something like MasterChef, and even then, the game will be shit because they are not game developers.

So yeah, if you ever want this idea to see the light of day, you will have to fund it yourself unfortunately. I'd probably try it if it was cheap. Can't say I would see myself playing a lot though.
 
William Murderface said:
Lucky for you, there's a "how to change guitar strings" tutorial in Rocksmith.

Talk about getting your money's worth!
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It was shitty, didn't work, and I broke the replacement string.
I don't understand how people make the loop and get it on without getting really bad kinks in the string. And online guides never show a decent diagram or video that's actually close up enough to see how they put it on.
 
Surprised no one has mentioned Age of Empires. It was wholly responsible for my love of history and looking up old stories. Hell ,AoE2 got support up through 2019 with a literal expansion.
 
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Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
It was shitty, didn't work, and I broke the replacement string.
I don't understand how people make the loop and get it on without getting really bad kinks in the string. And online guides never show a decent diagram or video that's actually close up enough to see how they put it on.
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If you don't have a friend who can show you, get to your nearest music store and they'll show you how. You can also generally buy individual strings and not just the full pack. It's worth it to keep a few extra high E and B strings in your gig bag just in case.

I also recommend getting something like this t keep your stuff organized.
 
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