Thesis on gaming in education

I'm slowly developing a masters about using video games in the classroom as a text; examining them and treating them like we do books, movies, etc. I am mostly focusing on games with a narrative bent that can be played in two or three sittings. Thus far, I have used Journey, Braid, Limbo, Unfinished Swan, Brothers, Child of Light (an outlier in the length department), Thomas Was Alone, and The Stanley Parable, to varying effect.

Any other suggestions for games with an interestingly-told narrative, or at least one that is told best through games?

Any suggestions are valid. Don't be concerned with possible tech restraints and the like.

I have taught these games to 7th and 8th grade Language Arts students, as a probably-unnecessary bit of exposition.

Gone Home seems like obvious choices for your class

Portal?

You have a pretty great selection already though. Might be hard to find anything else in that tier of quality.

Gone Home? Either that, or Gal Gun.

It's fine since you're in a language arts class, but I'm always disappointed when people want to focus on the narrative aspects of video games when the mechanics are what set them apart. I want to see a more academic focus on the game part.

Look up that extra credits episode that talks about Missile Command, I'm on a phone and can't.

Since this is being used for Language Arts class, am I to assume that the narrative must be largely the same for all students? I'd suggest Papers, Please - but that game has a lot of ways for different players to end up in different spots.

Otherwise I just finished up Her Story and came away pretty impressed, although without a guide it can be damn tough to find those last few snips of interview.

@believer258: I was gonma post this anyway, but I think you would like my thesis, Glass Bead Video Game, then: find it on www.pixel-being.com where you can also play a game I made for the thesis. Patrick played it for worth reading ;)

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger comes to mind. The actual plot is a pretty simple revenge/manhunt western. But the story is told from the hazy and unreliable memories of the main character as an old man (Edit: Oops, this might be a spoiler). It's not the most original idea but I think this game does it really well.

It's about 6 hours long if I remember correctly

Not mentioned so far; Dear Esther. While I'm not done with it yet, I think The Vanishing of Ethan Carter might fit the bill as well.

I feel like Kentucky Route Zero tells a story in a way that could only be possible in a video game.

Bastion and Westerado are both short-playing games with narrative. However, they also feature gameplay (in Bastion's case, astounding gameplay), and are not esoteric and obscure in their design.

Any amount of The Talos Principle (lots of questions about the nature of humanity and sentience), Katamari (it has a lot to say about consumerism!), and Grim Fandango (questions about the afterlife and a nice noir setting. I could honestly go on for hours.

I would love to know how your students like the course. I plan on teaching something similar someday and I'd love to know how you handle things like saves, consoles, and class discussions.

Bastion?

Fellow teachers unite. Or future teachers I guess. I'm about to start teachers college in the fall and I'd like to be able to do something with gaming in the classroom at some point.

How about examining short form games like Twine and Flash sort of thing? Stuff like Frog Fractions, Bubsy 3D, anything by Porpentine, etc. Interactive Fiction stuff might be good too.

Other than that, Cart Life is probably interesting to study.

Gravity Rush and Crisis Core

Maybe MGS2 if it wasn't a terrible game. Possibly the best story in a game in history but one of the worstest games.

Crisis Core is maybe too long I guess.

But wait. Wait wait wait. games should NOT be studied in the classroom. Hell no. Classes should be for practical or utilitarian knowledge only. And for the record the same applies to books and movies. They don't belong in study. Books are only remotely justifiable since they promote reading skills, so at least you're killing two birds with one stone.

Suikoden 2! A traditional story that could've worked in film or lit, but uses the space given by the medium to really open up and breathe. With as much time as you spend around the characters, the narrative beats resonate a lot more naturally without any ham-fisted audience manipulation.

I highly recommend this steam group and the curator part of it. https://steamcommunity.com/groups/ExtraCreditsEDU

It talks about the how the games can be used in general as ways to teach students. Also Extra Credits youtube has videos on the topic too. I don't know if this will be any help to you but its a very cool steam group.

Edit: Also I recommend Valiant Hearts.

Man, it is a huge bummer that length is such a mitigating factor for this, otherwise I would suggest a metric fuckton of things. But given the target audience, things much longer than seven hours would probably be an undue time burden amongst all other school-esque things they'd need to be doing.

Her Story

I would recommend Device 6 and 80 days, both games do some pretty interesting things with interactive narrative and can be played in a few hours.

Also, I second Her Story, such a cool game.

Silent Hill 2 - a very intesting game for both the plot and the way it is paced.

Papers, Please, Gone Home, Her Story.

Probably just parroting everyone else in the thread. They seem like easy choices. This is harder to think of than I thought considering that length is a pretty big factor.

Lock kids in a classroom and play through Persona 4. Yeah it's 100 hours, but that length is what makes you feel so attached to the characters! Those 100 hours will BREEEEEZE by!