To Sir, with games. Karl Adamson.

(CC photo credit)

Videogames allow us to explore space, or race a Ferrari. To match shapes,  or solve ancient mysteries. To make Sonic collect drugs, or throw excrement at Kieron Gillen. And for the latter, we can thank Karl Adamson.

Karl’s a supply/substitute teacher in the UK, teaching Secondary English. In 2008, he made his own interactive fiction (text adventure) game and used it in the classrooom. It was a simple ‘haunted castle’ affair, designed to teach narrative techniques. The students enjoyed the experience and as Karl wrote in The New Statesman, he “realised he’d become irrevocably addicted to designing games.  [It] became both a hobby and an obsession.”