Tuesday 6 January 2015

EGS History of developement

Electronic Game School  History of development

 
Now I play games since I got my first 8-bit computer, so I can call myself a True Gamer. I do not pretend to be a good one, it's that I love playing. I use to say that every time when I load a game, I do admit a loss.

So years pass and I love gaming and gaming. It begun with my first university degree when I managed to battle a diploma project about flash games. And because it had to be with a public value, they had to be educational. It is a Technical University with a "design" specialty. During these years I and my colleague made the first versions of EGS Solar Puzzle, EGS Europe Puzzle and EGS Bones Puzzle games. They didn't need to be competitive, but have an unified style and to transfer knowledge, which was the key for my professor. As we moved sometimes away from the main quest: knowledge, we developed some categories like History and Tourism games, that focus more on lore, than on knowledge, like EGS Rousse Quest. All went well, it was fun and practice was good. Games were under the name Game Morph.

After that I happened to continue in schools and I took another university degree in "Informational and Educational Technologies", It was all just math there, but this was somehow normal for a technical university. They wasn't encouraging imagination, but rather memory and analytics. So when I enlightened my mentors with my idea for a math game, they were... well just OK. There came the EGS Math Hex game.

By then I was working in the local schools computer halls, fighting computer entropy and helping to apply technology in schools. I had the chance to see in practice how interesting may that games be. The data wasn't so encouraging, but in time I found out, that the Knowledge have value only to those who value it. For example, If no one on the world value diamonds, they will actually have no value! And that was actually even stimulating. I thought if knowledge become less and less, it will add more and more value.  Everything was cool, and I thought all this wonderful ideas should go under a website with Electronic Game School title.

Then I had to become an IT teacher. They said it have been a world economic crisis and instead of one, I had to do 2 jobs for the same salary. Had to pass another degree for that, and it wasn't so fun. Many home language lessons and crowd control.  I'd rather try to find the kid's interest and connect it with some topic lesson, than forcing them just listen to something. Anyway I suppose there is a reason behind everything, I'm just not that smart to get it yet, but I'm still willing to learn. No game too, because it was a final exam and not a diploma project. The games in IT category, I have developed later to help myself in classes.

In 2014, I took a domain planeta42.com and try to put the games online. It's still a hobby and I got some free hosting, which just do the work. When the visitors land on the site, they are Level 0. When they win a game, for example arrange all planets in the Solar system correctly, they increase level +1. To be more mystical, for every 5 levels there is a hidden game that is unlocked. That games are not so educational games, but more fun games. I think to place graduate button on level 100 for fun and inspiration. And hidden games become Day celebrate games, that can be used for greeting cards in various celebrations and holidays. The site is light, we avoid moving adds, and there is no registration required to try the games, the knowledge levels use cookies.

For now I and my unbound team of friends plan to develop one game every month that have some knowledge, lore or scientific value. For example, November 2014 game was EGS Apples Varieties. I have an apple tree and I found myself, that I do not know what sort of apple it is. I imagine, instead of telling a joke in a company, to count 7 sorts of apples. It will be strange, but yet interesting.

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