Games for Learning, Video Captions: ID Links 12/14/21

Curated links on games for learning, video captions, and how to handle or make “pick your brain” requests.

As I read online, I bookmark resources I find interesting and useful. I share these links periodically here on my blog. This post includes links on games for learning, video captions, and how to handle “pick your brain” requests.

Games for learning

“Game Making for Dummies” | HiEv Heavy Industries on Patreon

While this is about making more complex games in Twine, much of this could apply to building more complex branching scenarios and simulations too.

6 Things Video Games Can Teach You About Writing Engaging Scenarios – E-Learning Heroes

Tips for writing engaging scenarios, plus examples from specific games. Selected quotes below.

Now, this isn’t to say your scenario’s aesthetics are meaningless. It’s more that if you have a limited amount of time and resources, it’s best to focus on crafting the story and keep the look and feel simple.

When it doesn’t take much thinking to identify the correct choice, it quickly becomes boring.   Instead, it’s better to give your audience challenging yet realistic decisions to ponder. Things that make them think hard about what the best option could be.

So what’s the best way to avoid clunky 90’s video game dialogue in your scenarios? Read your script out loud as you’re drafting it. If it sounds weird as you say it, that’s a good sign that it could use reworking.

Fun is a crucial part of what makes game-like experiences like scenarios so engaging. Just make sure that the majority of the fun serves to reinforce the project’s learning goals.

Bianca Woods

Video captions

How to Add Captions or Subtitles to a Video – TechSmith Tutorials

Camtasia offers several different ways to add captions to videos. If you already have a transcript for your video, adding and syncing it is easy with Camtasia.

Video Caption Generator – Automatic Captions – VEED.IO

Automatically generate captions for videos for free. If you don’t have a transcript for your video, this tool can help speed up the process of adding captions.

“Pick your brain” requests

How to manage “Can I pick your brain?” requests – Ness Labs

These suggestions on how to handle requests for free advice are the ways I handle them. I’ll answer questions via email for free, and I often send links and resources. But if you want a paid 1:1 call, especially if you’re vague about what you want, you’re going to have to pay for my time like every other consulting client.

This article also includes ideas on how to make better requests, and that’s what’s probably most helpful here. I’m much more likely to respond to specific, brief requests where people know what they want and have clearly made some attempt to research on their own.

Do your research. Show that you have tried to get the information you need in other ways, and resolved to send them an email because you could not figure out an answer to your query based on what’s freely available through other means. “I have read your blog post about X and wanted to ask…” or “I see that you joined the editorial team of this magazine a year ago and I was wondering…” show that you have done your research and need further information.

Anne-Laure Le Cunff

Additional resources

Check out my complete library of links or my previous bookmarks posts.

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