Video Games and the Power of Winter
Using the season to show change and balance between natural and designed architecture, to create breath-taking vistas with winter-affected landscape accuracy, and to use symbology effectively, result in places that may only offer the bones of the landscape to the eye, yet are actually full of meaning. They are genuine meaningful representations of winter, not landscapes in denial.

The Impact of Temperature on Gaming Productivity
Overall, our analysis suggests that both high temperatures and low temperatures strongly affect human time allocation and productivity. Whereas the growing attention to climate change draws more interests to the impacts of extreme heat, low temperature and extreme cold can also have strong impacts on the economic system.

Nostalgia Maintains Physiological Comfort
Nostalgia is triggered by thermoregulatory discomfort: nostalgia was stronger on colder (vs. warmer) days and in a cold (vs. neutral or warm) room. In turn, nostalgia increases physical warmth: music-evoked nostalgia predicted the physical sensation of warmth, and recalling a nostalgic (vs. ordinary autobiographical) event made a cold room feel warmer.

It's Your Journey: Native Innovation in Video Game
For Native communities, LaPensee's games are powerful tools for healing...in a virtual environment, people experience memories and history in a controllable way, progressing—or pausing—at their own pace.

Using Video Games in Diversity and Inclusive Education
Dynamic in-game environments that react to input allow players to adopt the roles and viewpoints of different people or groups in a uniquely immersive way. Video games could thus support educational courses and programs whose objective is to foster empathy, raise awareness, and take real action in hopes of making social change.

Where Is the Queerness in Games?
As a first step toward accounting for the complexity and depth of LGBTQ game content, this article offers an overview of the many forms LGBTQ content takes in games and explores some of the challenges in classifying game content as LGBTQ relevant.

What do you think of when October comes around? Spooky skeletons? Pumpkin spice lattes? Jack-o-lanterns? Leaves changing color? No matter how you spend your fall days, it’s hard to argue that the colder weather doesn’t provide the perfect excuse to laze around indoors playing video games. From tension building horror games to cozy autumn adventures, we’ve tried to capture the best parts of October in this month’s collection.

USC Experts Explain the Science of Fright
So why might we subject ourselves to these frightful ordeals? The answer lies within both the mind and the body…

Video Games and the Change of Autumn
Autumn's transitional nature enables it to offer different aesthetics and atmospheres - perfectly encapsulating our often-mixed feelings about the season. This flux occurs in games, too: storyline changes; mysterious plotlines, character and atmosphere intricacies; constant environmental transformations; and a powerful sense of mystery, story-foretelling and landscape-opening are all harnessed to be used as game-changing devices.
 

Things That Go Bump in the Literature
“Haunted houses” could be among the oldest problems in environmental psychology, i.e., the scientific study of the transactions and interrelationships between people and their surroundings.

The StudioLab is a creative technology space, established by the Council on Science and Technology to nurture interdisciplinary learning. It is a beginner-friendly environment for exploring the arts, humanities, and sciences through hands-on experiences. It is because of these values that the StudioLab also celebrates play, and subsequently celebrates games. Although games don’t have to be designed with didactic intentions to be educational, we’ve chosen “Pedagogy and Play” as the first theme for Read / Watch / Play. In this collection, you’ll find a selection of games designed to help the player learn, as well as articles and videos about the gamification of learning processes.

Video Games Don't Have to Be Educational to Spark Learning
“I was bound to learn something, even if just by accident. And I definitely did.”
 

Gamification as a Tool for Engaging Student Learning
“We are cautiously optimistic about continuing this line of research in the future. Careful manipulation of game mechanisms can have an impact on sustaining and encouraging play via a gamified application.”
 

How Gamification Motivates
“Gamification can be a powerful solution to address motivational problems within learning or working contexts, as long as they are well designed and are built upon well-established implementation models.”
 

Edutainment? No Thanks. I Prefer Playful Learning
“You are likely to learn the most, and enjoy the most, if you are engaged as an active participant, not a passive recipient.”

The Super Mario Effect: Tricking Your Brain Into Learning More
Mark Rober, YouTuber and former NASA engineer, talks about how approaching life like a game can help others learn more and achieve greater success.
 

Gamification in Education
Dr. Christopher See, lecturer and researcher at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, discusses how he developed a medical examination based escape room, and the ideas behind gamifying education.
 

Rethinking Engineering Education with Video Games
Dr. Brianno Coller, professor at Northern Illinois University, speaks about how he’s developed and modified video games to integrate into his engineering course curriculum, improving students’ motivation to learn tough concepts.