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Author Archives: Sherol Chen

Girls Tend to Avoid First Person Shooters and Circular Saws

By Sherol Chen | Published: August 21, 2009

In my experiences, many girls don’t seem eager to try new things if they cannot predict the consequences and are without someone to explain how the new thing is done.  This is especially true of things that they don’t see other girls doing.  In particular, I rarely see girls playing games such as first person […]

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Edutainment and Lessons “Learned” from Commercial Video Games: Jazz Band Revolution

By Sherol Chen | Published: July 29, 2009

“Jazz Band Revolution” …. Trust me, this is a great idea. A fellow EIS labmate recently gave a class presentation about the “Edutainment Fail.”  To its credit, edutainment is responsible for my first interactions with desktop computers.  Games such as Oregon Train, Logo Writer, some lemonade stand game, and that typing game were widely used […]

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Distant Worlds: San Francisco Symphony Plays Celebrates Music from Final Fantasy

By Sherol Chen | Published: July 20, 2009

There are 3 takeaways I hope to convey in this post.  First, I’d like to share what it was like to be there Saturday night in the symphony hall.  Secondly, I want to describe what I thought about my second time at an FF concert (my first is described here).  Most importantly, I want to […]

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Digital Humanities 2009: My First Humanities Conference

By Sherol Chen | Published: July 17, 2009

Trying to find traction in my pursuit of academic scholarship is quite daunting at times.  There are just so many people in the world doing so many interesting things, and it often feels like an endless catching up with the many experts of today.  What I do know is my childhood aspiration to tell stories […]

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What do Amnesia, Immortality, and Mind Control have to do with Game Design, Immersion, and Suspension of Disbelief?

By Sherol Chen | Published: July 11, 2009

What breaks your sense of presence in a story? The culture of video game playing has developed a tolerance for the common practices and limitations in designing and producing games.  We’ve stopped asking “why?” and have come to expect the typical input arrangements, the impermanence of death, and restrictions of our own free will.  Although […]

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Dear Friends 2005, the “Melodies of Life”

By Sherol Chen | Published: June 10, 2009

Let me tell you about how far game music has come since I was a young child… When I was a young girl, I loved Final Fantasy.  All my school assignments, given that I had a choice, was related to Final Fantasy.  I’m such the evangelist, that I took a tape recorder (the one my […]

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