Confronting Racial Essentialism in Dungeons & Dragons
The last few months, NASAGA’s blog has been talking a good amount about Dungeons & Dragons. As the writer for NASAGA, maybe it’s time I come clean. I love D&D. …
Dungeons & Dragons & Identity: How the DMsGuild Empowered Equality
The following is based on ongoing unpublished research conducted by the author. Names and any other identifiable specifics have been changed in accordance with wishes of the participants. It’s the …
From Professor to Entrepreneur
by Raymond A. “Ray” Kimball, EdD (he/him) This week we welcome Dr. Ray Kimball, founder of 42 Ed Games Coaching and Design, and a long-term advocate for games-based learning. Like …
Welcome to NASAGA 2022
Welcome, gamers, to 2022 with the North American Simulation and Games Association! 2021 has hissed its last toxic breath, whispering promises that it will revenge itself upon us one day. …
Guest Post: Distributed Practice Pt.2
This week we welcome back guest blogger Dave Eng, founder of University XP to illuminate some of the complex concepts surrounding distributed practice in games-based learning.Dave Eng is an intellectual …
Using Democracy 3 to Teach Civics
In this month’s deep dive on using games for classroom education, we will be mixing theory and application as we explore Democracy 3, a wonderful little political simulator. This politics …
Is Gamification Still Bullshit?
In his landmark 2011 speech, Dr. Ian Bogost declared that “gamification is bullshit.” As one of the most prominent scholars on games (both then and now), these words challenged a …
August Learning Games Spotlight: Fiscal Ship
This month we will be starting a new series in the NASAGA blog: learning games spotlights. In this new series, we will spotlight games that were built to teach and …
Learning Games: Using Play to Teach
Playing to learn and learning to play are two fundamental concepts of the human experience. Learning games, often associated with the idea of “serious play”, can refer to either games …
Games for Learning: Three Fields of Study
When I began working in games research about a decade ago, games for learning was still the catch-all term to describe any intersection of the two ideas. Over the last …