Occult Game Design: An Initiation into Secrets and Mysteries

From Warren Robinett's first easter egg in Adventure to the retrogaming scavenger hunts of Ready Player One, mysteries exert a magnetic pull on players. The Binding of Isaac and The Legend of Grimrock bristle with puzzles, traps, and secrets, mirroring the effective but obscure narrative design of the cult classics Demon's Souls and Killer7. Howard, an expert on quests, demonstrates designing mystery through intertwined mechanics and narrative, individually cryptic but mutually reinforcing. Mystery enables puzzles that are pervasive and organic rather than localized and artificial. The cumulative effects heighten player engagement, enrich player communities, and keep satisfied players wanting more

Force and Fire: Making Your Game More Metal

Metal is energy. Heavy metal can inspire game narratives and carry them on black wings to towering heights, soaring far above mere genre or soundtracks. Unleash metal\u27s black soul into your narrative design, inspiring cryptic incantations, doom-soaked art direction, Gothic world building, and brutal yet elegant game mechanics. Mine the musical dungeons and lyrical lairs of metal for jewels of visual art and ore for world-building. Forge these worlds in metal\u27s crucible, and they will spawn gripping tales of creation out of chaos, rebellion against the false gods of conformity, and apocalyptic negation of any force that chains imagination

Texas 4-H Food and Nutrition Quiz Bowl Supplement

6 pp., plus notebook divider page with tabA supplement to the Texas 4-H Quiz Bowl Guide, this publication offers suggested questions for use in a 4-H food and nutrition quiz bowl

Organizing Your 4-H Project Group

2 pp.Project work allows 4-H volunteer leaders to teach and young people to learn new skills and gain new knowledge. Each project group should be organized in cooperation with the club's organizational leader. Use this guide when planning your first project meetings

Student Retention and First-Year Programs: A Comparison of Students in Liberal Arts Colleges in the Mountain South

The purpose of this study was to examine the association between the retention rate and 9 firstyear student programs at Liberal Arts Colleges in the Mountain South, a region in the southern Appalachian Mountains of the United States. Nine first-year programs were studied: Summer Bridge Programs, Preterm Orientation, Outdoor Adventure Orientation, Targeted Seminars, Learning Communities, Early Warning/Early Alert Systems, Service Learning, Undergraduate Research, and Assessment. The data for this study were accessed via the college database of The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2013). Chi Square tests were used for analysis to identify associations between first-year student retention and the presence of each of the 9 programs. The results indicated that the presence of each of the 9 first-year programs was not significantly related to first-year student retention

4-H Club Officer Handbook - Club Committees

3 pp.This section from the 4-H Club Officer Handbook features key areas of responsibilities for members serving on the different club committees. Topics cover functions of club committees and important committee tips. The section concludes with descriptions of duties for committee members, including the chair and the executive committee

4-H Club Officer Handbook - Council Delegate

2 pp., one photoThis section from the 4-H Club Officer Handbook features the multi-faceted role of the Council Delegate. It explains the purpose of the County 4-H Council and outlines the delegate's various duties

4-H Club Officer Handbook - Third Vice President

4 pp., 3 photosThis section from the 4-H Club Officer Handbook features the multi-faceted role of the Third Vice President. It covers the officer's duties, which primarily involve helping the President and other Vice Presidents. This section concludes with tasks for the Membership Committee, of which the Third Vice President serves as chair

Although cities often are touted as climate change policy leaders, a close look at politically conservative Texas cities finds many lagging or faltering

As the recent Supreme Court decision on Obama’s climate regulations have illustrated, climate action at the national level in the US is a fraught affair. US cities often are touted as leading on climate, however — or at least some of them are. Ann W. Foss and Jeff Howard argue that most cities leading on climate are politically liberal, and they use the Dallas- Fort Worth area as a case study to examine a range of communities at the opposite end of the political spectrum. In this conservative region, they find far more laggard cities than leaders, and cities that have begun to emerge as leaders often have backslidden. Political aversion to climate action, they write, often means that when laggard cities pursue energy efficiency and renewable energy strategies, they do so as cost saving rather than environmental measures

A Comparison of Student Retention and First Year Programs Among Liberal Arts Colleges in the Mountain South

Abstract is available to download