Background: Software engineer
Some of my favorite games
I’m very interested in puzzle games like:
- Portal
- The game teaches the player experientially through puzzle design rather than through words and instructions. It’s an interesting contrast to passive media like books and YouTube videos that strike the opposite balance: they teach through words instead of experientially.
- Outer Wilds
- The game design explores how to motivate the player solely through curiosity. I wrote an essay about it: Learning Design Insights from Outer Wilds.
- The Witness
- If you play the game for long enough, you experience a pretty big epiphany about the game. It was an exciting experience. It’s really cool that the game design was able to pull this off!
- Stephen’s Sausage Roll
What I’ve worked on
Professionally, I’ve worked as a software engineer on various non-education projects.
In terms of education, I built a prototype of a math puzzle game about decoding an alien’s number system. Solving the puzzles requires a gradually increasing understanding of the math concepts of number bases and place value. You can check out the game here: First Contact: An Experiential Introduction to Number Bases & Place Value. If you play, let me know if you have any feedback!
What I’d like to work on
Puzzle games, like the ones I mentioned above, do a good job of teaching ideas experientially rather than through words. This style of teaching and learning resonates with me because most of my best learning experiences have been through doing rather than through just reading or listening. I’m currently experimenting with taking concepts about the real-world and trying to communicate them through puzzle games.
For more about the kinds of ideas that most resonate with me, check out this page I created: Books, Games, and Videos with Insights About Learning.