Hi there everybody! Simone de Rochefort from Pixelkin.org here with your family gaming news.
We’ve been talking about it for weeks, and The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D is finally with us. It’s no surprise that we loved it. Courtney praises its fun gameplay and the surprising emotional depth of the story. Read that full review here.
Not to be outdone by last week’s news about Rock Band’s potential return, Guitar Hero is coming back too? What? Is it 2007? Activision is making the first Guitar Hero game since Guitar Hero 5, which came out four years ago. 2015 is shaping up to be the battle of the bands. We’ll probably hear more about both potential announcements at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in June.
Coding is the skill we’re all going to need. President Obama said last week that “everybody’s got to learn how to code early,” and that, “STEM education is a huge priority.” As the President pointed out, programming needs to be taught to groups that aren’t traditionally represented in coding circles—African Americans and Latinos as a whole, and girls especially. Games could be used as a tool for keeping kids invested in STEM education. Pretty cool.
If you or your kids already want to make games, introducing them to GameMaker Studio is a great way to start. GameMaker is a development tool that simplifies the game-making process. And you can use it to create all sorts of things. Check out our introductory primer to GameMaker: Studio, and see what Nathan Meunier made with it in the video here.
Twitch.tv has announced its first game broadcasting convention. Conventions are a staple of games culture, providing gamers with a place to discuss their hobbies and check out new games. TwitchCon will be held in San Francisco on September 25th and 26th. Presumably congoers will be able to watch livestreams and meet their favorite players, as well as possibly get some advice on running their own channels. We’ll tell you more about TwitchCon as soon as more info is released.
Finally, if you’re in the mood for a touching story on how gaming brings families together, check out this story on Pixelkin about how a father and his son got closer through Street Fighter. Neither Michael or his son Zak were very interested in sports, the typical father-son activity. So they turned to Street Fighter as a way to spend time together. That article is linked here.
Oh, and remember that gold Mario Amiibo everyone was going on about a while go? Well, it’s here, it’s a WalMart exclusive, and it’s already sold out. Better luck next time.
That’s it for this week! Next week I’ll be in Boston for PAX East, and I might be buried alive in a snow bank. Hopefully I’ll be back in the office and defrosted by March 13th. But don’t write that down in your calendar or anything, just subscribe to this channel and get notified next time we release another episode of This Week in Family Gaming.
