Category Archives: Programming

Battle Royale Games: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite @ Teen Services Underground

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Combining the gameplay style from third-person shooters like Uncharted and Tomb Raider with the “Kill or Be Killed” rules from The Hunger Games, “Battle Royale” games are all the rage among video game players these days.

If your patrons have been asking for these games and you feel left out of the loop, don’t worry, Programming Librarian Dustan Archer has published a great overview of the genre’s two biggest titles, Fortnite: Battle Royale and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, at Teen Services Underground:

Battle Royale is, at its heart, a last person standing survival game. In most games of this genre, players have to acquire weapons, armor, healing kits and other items in order to eliminate other players and survive other players’ attacks, all while staying within the ever-shrinking ‘safe zone’. This ‘safe zone’ shrinks over the duration of the game to encourage players to come into contact with each other and force combat to occur, rather than allow players to ‘camp’ – or stay in one place – and wait for an enemy to show up without the risk of revealing their own position. In many of these games, players can stay outside of the safe zone for a brief period of time but will lose health steadily until they re-enter the safe zone.

I’ve played about a dozen rounds of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and even in its unfinished state (“PUBG” is currently available as an “Early Access” title), the game is incredibly well done. The action is intense, and being able to survive against 99 other players feels like a real achievement.

Like Dustan, I think that both “Battle Royale” games would make an excellent addition to the game collection of any library.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds can be purchased for the PC and Xbox One for $19.99 (but only as a downloadable game). Fortnite: Battle Royale is also only available as a downloadable game, but it can be downloaded for free on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Coding For Fun @ American Libraries

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“Learn To Code” programs often go hand-in-hand with gaming programs, but it can be hard to figure out the best way to introduce your patrons to coding. Thankfully, American Libraries recently put together a great overview of a few different “Learn To Code” programs, specifically ones that using games to introduce coding concepts:

With computing jobs projected to grow two times faster than other fields, coding skills are an increasingly important literacy area. Libraries play a vital role in introducing these skills to their youngest community members. Coding may seem like a daunting subject for those who haven’t studied it, but there are a number of games that introduce computational concepts through play, making it easy and fun to practice computational thinking and problem solving.

This is a great article for anyone who ever wanted to learn more about Little Bits, Turing Tumble, and ScratchJr.

Nintendo Labo Belongs in the Classroom @ GamesIndustry.biz

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It’s hard to believe that two of the most-anticipated new releases of the month are a pair of cardboard construction kits from Nintendo. But here we are… the Nintendo Labo: Robot Kit and the Nintendo Labo: Variety Kit are at the top of every Switch owner’s wishlist.

When paired with the Switch’s Joy-Con Controllers, players can use the Nintendo Labo (sort for “Laboratory”) kits to build a piano, a fishing pole, an RC car, or a full-sized robot suit. A part of me still isn’t convinced that Nintendo Labo is a real product that’s really being sold by a multibillion dollar company. And yet, journalists like GamesIndustry.biz‘s Christopher Dring are convinced that Nintendo Labo’s greatest contribution to the gaming community will be in the classroom (or the library):

Labo is a series of games, and accompanying cardboard products, which work with the Nintendo Switch and its Joy-Con controllers. You can create a motorbike out of cardboard and use it to race in a game. Or a fishing rod to go fishing, or a RC car to judder and move across a flat surface. Or even a small piano. You can decorate these cardboard creations as you want, too. Hence the felt tip pens and bits of ribbon strewn throughout the room.

[…]

The game we played contains a wealth of features, accessories and hidden modes that suggest there is a lot of enjoyment to be had. The most impressive of which might just be the game’s more ‘hardcore’ Garage mode. Garage lets gamers play around with the Nintendo Switch and its Joy-Con controllers to develop their own concepts and ideas, and even reprogram existing concepts. The Nintendo UK community manager had created his own shooting range, reprogrammed the fishing rod to control the RC Car, and even turned a Joy-Con into the world’s most expensive doorbell.

This is Labo’s undeniable strength – its an inspiration tool for a variety of different children. There’s the basics of engineering and programming taking place in here, not to mention the art and creativity that the concept prides itself on.

Nintendo Labo certainly offers a lot of creative possibilities, and even though it still sounds completely crazy, I think there’s definitely a place for the cardboard construction kits in schools and libraries.

“Exploring Gaming in LIS Curricula” Survey Now Available

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Have you ever wondered how How do ALA-accredited Library and Information Science programs address gaming? A new survey of educators aims to find out…

We are Aaron J. Elkins, PhD, Assistant Professor at Texas Woman’s University, and Jonathan M. Hollister, PhD, Assistant Professor at Pusan National University. We hope to better understand the current status, use, and discussion of games and gaming within American Library Association (ALA) accredited Library and Information Science (LIS) degree programs in the United States.

Games and gaming, in either digital or analog formats, can help librarians and information professionals facilitate learning and 21st Century Skills such as problem solving and critical thinking. It is unclear how pre-service librarians are being prepared to successfully incorporate games and gaming into the collections, programming, and services their libraries or other information organizations provide.

If you are an LIS educator (this includes tenured/tenure-track faculty members, adjunct instructors, teaching faculty members, graduate lead instructors or graduate assistants, etc.) who have taught, are currently teaching, or developed curricular materials addressing gaming for an ALA-accredited degree program, then we’d like to hear from you!

So head over to Survey Monkey if you’d like to participate in the data collection.

Ready Player One Programming Ideas @ Programming Librarian

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Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Ready Player One will open in theaters next month, and many librarians are looking for ways to create programming that ties in with the virtual adventure.

But don’t worry, Jennifer Massa, the Program Librarian at Mount Prospect Public Library in Illinois, has a few ideas. She recently shared “Is Your Library ‘Ready Player One’ Ready?” with Programming Librarian, and offered up a few ideas:

The science fiction novel follows 18-year-old Wade as he tries to find an Easter egg of riches hidden by a billionare in OASIS, a virtual reality game. On his journey, Wade makes friends, falls in love, plays Pac-Man and listens to Rush. Between the ’80s references and the major plot point surrounding a scavenger hunt, readers of all genres were drawn to this futuristic book.

The film adaptation will come out March 29, and fans are buzzing with excitement. Here are a few program ideas to bring the adventure to life for its fans.

Some of Massa’s good ideas include a scavenger hunt, a Ready Player One Party (with 80s-appropriate retro gaming), and a themed display (these Read-Alikes might help with that last one).

Four-Player Sports Video Games @ Inverse Genius

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Just in time for the Super Bowl, the Games in Schools and Libraries blog at Inverse Genius has offered up a great collection of sports video games that are perfect for four players:

Sports games are always an excellent addition to any video game collection. They see constant play and are nearly always multiplayer. Their appeal to a broad audience brings in a fair number of patrons we wouldn’t see otherwise, as well as being accessible to all ages.

Whether they’re rumbling down the sidelines for a touchdown or taking a last-second shot at the goal, your patrons will definitely enjoy Madden NFL 18, FIFA 18, NBA 2K18, and NHL 18.

Life-Size Pac-Man @ Teen Services Underground

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Did you grow up collecting Dots and dodging Ghosts in Pac-Man? If so, you might want to give a “Life-Size Pac-Man” program a try.

Teen Services Underground recently recruited Casey Chwiecko to describe how she built a Pac-Man maze for her library:

Using our biggest program space, I set up a very simple grid similar to the tradition Pac-Man game without allowing them to out the sides and pop back up on the other side. It was surprisingly easy after I’d sketched it out to eyeball it on the floor of our room. I used paper plates as the objects they had to pick up so it was easy to a) reset and b) grid out the section.

The program sounds like it was a huge success, and hopefully “Life-Size Pac-Man” will be coming soon to a library near you!

Running a Booth For Your Library at a Geeky Convention @ Programming Librarian

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New conventions celebrating “Geek Culture” are sprouting up all over the place, and there’s a place for your library on the show floor whether your local geeky gathering is focused on comics, science fiction, video games, or all of the above.

Sarah Gallagher, the Outreach Librarian at the Whitehorse Public Library in Canada’s Yukon Territory, recently approached Programming Librarian with “Ten Reasons to Do a Pop-Up at Your Comic Convention,” and it’s not all about marketing:

Yukon Public Libraries is big on geek culture. We collect comics, graphic novels, role-playing game rule books, anime, medieval cookbooks and costuming manuals, and we host a popular weekly role-playing game (RPG) drop-in program for teens. So naturally we saw a place for ourselves at YukomiCon, the biannual celebration of geek culture organized by the Yukon Comic Culture Society.

OK, Gallagher does talk a bit about the marketing aspect of running a booth at your local “Geek Culture” convention. But she also looks at the benefits you’ll see by talking to your patrons in a new setting, gaining valuable feedback from congoers, and networking with folks from the community. Also… “It’s super fun!”

Interested in hosting your own convention? Our guide, “Running a Game Convention at Your Library,” can help.