Experimenting with how students would enjoy an online game without any rules or directions, I set my students loose last week to explore Samorost 2.  The Flash-based game places the gamer in a fantasy world where he or she must click different elements of the screen in sequence to discover what to do next.  Some scenes require strategy and imagination where players must uncover patterns of actions that will allow the game to progress.

While the game may not teach traditional content such as math or language arts, it does require a student to think and scan – some strategies that could be transferred to reading a chart or graph on an 8th grade standardized test.

Student engagement is evident and students – even though they were instructed to work independently, teamed up and help each other out to finish the two levels.

Below are a few blog posts my students wrote discussing their experiences:

http://anamrocks.wordpress.com/2008/09/09/good-morning-readers/

http://jfuego95.wordpress.com/2008/09/12/samorost-1-2/

http://radoslaw95.wordpress.com/2008/09/12/samarost/

http://mario9.wordpress.com/2008/09/12/samorost-review/