As mentioned in the past few posts, I did a presentation on [i] The History of Video Games and [b] Serious Games at the Barcamp Derry conference on Saturday. At the end of the talk I promised to upload my slides to my blog, and here they are!  I’ve uploaded them to SlideShare, so they can viewed online or downloaded (by pressing the menu button) for offline/viewing or editing.  You can find them after the “read more” link below, as well as a list of recommended reading.

Side A – A Brief History of Video Games

Side B – Serious Games & My Work at UUC

The video for the end of this second presentation (showing my games in action) can be found here on Vimeo.

(Note: I’ve had to remove the fancy fonts used during the slideshow as Slideshare would not display these correctly, so it doesn’t look quite as good as it did on Saturday.  Also, videos are now included via Youtube links rather than being fully integrated.)

These presentations are under a Creative Commons – Non-Commercial – Attribution license.

If you’re further interested in this content, here’s some recommended reading:

• The Ultimate History of Video Games (Steven Kent) – A rather large book containing a substantial history of video games with a ton of interviews from the people who were at the forefront of making it happen.  Excellent reading.
• Masters of Doom (David Kushner) – A truly insightful and entertaining read about the guys behind the game “Doom” (as well as “Wolfenstein 3D” and “Quake”) who formed ID Software. One of my personal favourites.
• Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth about Violent Video Games (Kutner & Olson) – A proper look at violent video games and the effects they can have on young kids, proving you shouldn’t believe everything you hear or read in the media.

Also these websites:

• “Serious Games” on Wikipedia – Say what you want about Wikipedia, but this provides some great information and links to various serious games.
• Serious Games Source – News relating to serious games.
• Gamasutra – One of the most informative and indepth sites out there regarding the game’s industry and game design.

Finally you can see my list of publications (with some links) here.