Perludus is from latin Per Ludus, meaning “From Play”. The name came up while thinking about parallels between games and learning. On one hand we can watch how people play, think about good game design and recognize good games. On the other hand we can watch how people learn, think about how to teach, and recognize good teachers or classes. What are the parallels? What can game developers learn from educators? What can educators learn from games? How can games be used effectivelty for education?
About the Author
Tim Holt is an industry experienced game designer and developer. With a deep background in software development and level design, his interest is on gameplay and game design and how it can be applied to both entertainment and non-entertainment applications.
Before games, Tim was involved with developing interactive software for data visualization and management for scientific applications for oceanographic research ships at Oregon State University. This included shipboard navigational display systems, data acquisition, visualization and management tools, remote instrument control software, TCP/IP sockets based data exchange systems and many other applications. During this time Tim also traveled extensively at sea and overseas for various research projects.
In 2001 he found himself involved with a mod team as the lead level designer for a Half-Life mod called Day of Defeat. Soon, Valve Software acquired the mod and hired the team to continue development, and in 2003, Day of Defeat was published by Activision and released as a commercial product.
While working with Valve, Tim continued working at Oregon State University, and used any opportunity he could find to combine games with University work. That lead him to become deeply involved with the Serious Games. Serious Games is the application of games, game ideas and game technologies to non-entertainment applications such as training, visualization, education, social interaction and so forth.
Besides working on multiple game-related projects, Tim has been a consultant, contractor for game development. He also has been a presenter at conferences such as the Game Develvoper Conference, Games For Health, GDC Austin and others. He has taught short classes both here and abroad on game development and modding.
Contact
Tim Holt
1260 NW 17th St.
Corvallis, OR 97330 USA
Email: timh@perludus.com
Phone: 541-829-9903