Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Year after year, many schools struggle to teach kids basic math and reading skills. Portal, on the other hand, taught my childlike, directionally-crippled brain a slew of hyper-complex spatial reasoning abilities. In about 30 minutes. So I guess maybe it could be a good fit for the classroom. And hey, what do you know (aside from a Portal-imbued slew of hyper-complex spatial reasoning abilities)? Valve seems to think so too. The resulting program’s been dubbed Teach With Portals, and it’s just the beginning of Valve’s new Steam For Schools initiative.

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How do you take a break from a project that seems like it will never be finished? It’s a tough question that we newshounds ask ourselves every day and it appears Notch has been having similar thoughts. Now that Minecraft has been officially released, its creator is taking a step back, leaving co-developer Jens Bergensten to take the reins. As for Notch, he’ll be resting, helping out with Minecraft and starting work on a new project. Released or not, Minecraft isn’t finished, so read on for a quick look at the current state of play and then read further to find out about the loveliest Minecraft story I’ve seen all year.

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A new update to SpaceChem has arrived, adding a sandbox mode to the brain-challenging indie wonderpuzzler. I haven’t tried it yet because I can feel a vein beginning to throb in my temple as soon as I think about the possibilities. There is a competition to find the best creation and this quote to introduce it doesn’t help matters:

I suspect that some people will be building molecular computers, but that certainly doesn’t mean that’s the only thing we’re looking for.

So, they’ll be building molecular computers, will they? If I load this up there’s a very real chance that it’s the last anyone will hear from me until I’m found with my entire face clenched into four square inches of pure concentration as new elements spew catastrophically from my motherboard.

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A man from the government doesn’t hate videogames. It’s a news story. It’s more of a news story when that man is sinister Pob-lookalike Michael Gove, admittedly. He’s taken time off from shitting all over British education to say that he thinks videogames are a useful means of teaching. Which is a bit like Jack Thompson saying he likes to relax of an evening with a game of GTA IV.

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