Features reporter Nicholas Solomon looks at “Sharp Objects,” the HBO thriller miniseries based on the Gillian Flynn novel. September 5, 2018
Volume 145, Issue 3
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Game design minor helps students step into the gaming industry Mingzhu Zhu Washburn Review mingzhu.zhu@washburn.edu
Photo by Mingzhu Zhu
The game design is a new minor at Washburn University that will exist by the end of 2018. It’s a broad minor. The courses that satisfy the minor come from the School of Business and the College of Arts and Sciences. The housing of the minor is inside the university rather than a department. The courses of the game design minor cover five departments, like history, mass media, art, computer science and mathematics. Most courses in the game design minor are already existing courses, except for a game design class taught by Gaspar Porta, which Washburn will offer in spring 2019. By spring 2019, every course will be a regular course in Washburn’s course catalog.
The requirement of the game design minor is 15 credit hours among the minor courses. The professors who will teach the courses of the minor come from a variety of departments. They include Gaspar Porta, Azyz Sharafy, Phil Hauptman, Dmitri Nizovtsev, Paul Byrne, Rick LeJeurrne, Tony Silvestri, Matthew Nyquist and Rick Barker. Many classes from the five departments will count toward the game design minor. One class will come from the mathematics department, taught by Gaspar Porta, and one class will come from the computer science department. There will be two to three classes from mass media department and three classes from the art department. The math class for the game design minor focus on the fundamental math tools to balance and construct mechanisms in a game. The tools give students the type of mechanical situations they will use for game players to have fun. Students have to match the mathematical tools with the story and concept in the games so that the mathematics don’t overshadow the fun. There are some challenges of the game design minor. One of them is to work on the mechanics that breaks down how a game works while also having people with art expertise
to round out the picture and the environment. Art courses have a lot to do with animation. They contain digital painting, video game design, 2D and 3D digital animation. In art courses, students create different kinds of visual stimuli that will connect the settings in a game. It’s important that the game connects players with parts of the game stories that were told. Computer science class is about coding and virtual games. The class is called game design coding. They are directly connected to curing out the construction of settings and the creation of the game. The mass media class, taught by Matthew Nyquist, has to do with the history of video games, the background and other developments that led to the current virtual gaming environment. “If you want to be a part of the game industry, and you don’t know the history of how we got here, you are going to be [at] a disadvantage,” Porta said. There are three business classes in the game design minor, game theory, macroeconomics and entrepreneurship. STORY CONTINUED ON PAGE 7
‘The Merchant WU faculty gives insight on Brazil museum fire of Venice’ comes Charles Rankin to life Washburn Review charles.rankin@washburn.edu
Natalie Croze
Washburn Review natale.croze@washburn.edu
If you’re looking for something different to do on the weekends of Sept. 7, 8, 9, and 14, 15, 16, perhaps consider a visit to the St. Marys Shakespeare Festival. For these six nights in September a volunteer cast and crew will be performing some of the great epics written by the Playwright himself William Shakespeare. Founded by three friends in the Fall of 2018, Shakespeare Under the Stars, as it has become known, features more than just the time honored tradition of a live action viewing of the classics of Shakespeare, the festival also hosts to several vendors who sell food, drinks, and trinkets appropriate to the theme. For this year, volunteers at the festival will be performing the Merchant of Venice, a play about a merchant living in Venice who owes money to a Jewish moneylender, but cannot pay back his debts. The play is believed to have been written between the years of 1596 and 1599 and it explores themes of religion, friendship, and the difficulties that come when money gets in between them. The ticket prices for the event are $12-per person, with an upper limit for families of $60, and the ticket is good until the event is over, meaning that you need only to pay once for entry into the festival for all six days. The festival will open its gates every night at 5:00 p.m. and the play will begin at 6:30 p.m. each night as well, during the play there will be a 20 minute intermission during the play as it is two and half hours long. It is recommended that you come to see the play on a different night than you go to the actual village and see the vendors, in order to fully enjoy both experiences. It is also recommended that you dress with the weather in mind as it may grow chilly on the night you attend, and you will need to take your own seating to the festival, such as lawn chairs and perhaps a blanket for that potential chill. If you do forget to bring something to sit on, you can rent some seating for $5 a night. The address for the festival is 28058 Mt Calvary Rd, St Marys, KS 66536 and more directions and information for the festival can be found at their website, Flint Hills Shakespeare Festival.com.
A fire destroyed the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro and millions of artifacts within its walls on the night of Sept. 2. In a translated press release, the Brazilian Ministry of Culture stated that the museum was the oldest of its kind in the nation, having celebrated its 200th anniversary in June. It also recognized the toll this fire has caused to Brazil’s history and culture. “This is an irreparable loss for the country,” the release said. “Brazilian culture and Brazil are in mourning.” Officials are also investigating what caused this fire, and determining steps to take to stop an incident like this from happening elsewhere in the Photo courtesy of Paulo R C M Jr. country Museu Nacional was established in 1818 by King Pedro II of Portugal at the royal palace. Today the building stands in “[The Ministry of Culture] The charred, ruinous remains. considers that the causes and responsibilities must be riguniversity level, an incident like this could be Morse, Washburn professor and Latin Ameriorously determined,” the release said. “The devastating. As the dean of libraries he said can historian. “The building has a tremendous Ministry of Culture will make every effort to that a fire at Mabee would have tremendous amount of history, separate from its history as support this project, looking also at the other impact on the history of Washburn. a museum,” Morse said. “[The building] was museums in the country in order to prevent “It’s the university archives and special roughly the equivalent of a Brazilian White such tragedies from recurring and causing collections where we hold a number of irre- House.” more damage to Brazilian cultural heritage.” placeable items, one of a kinds,” Bearman Morse said that when Napoleon invaded Faculty here at Washburn have unique in- said. “The original Lincoln College book the Iberian peninsula King Pedro I, the Porsight into the type of damage this fire has collection, the only known physical copy of tuguese king, fled the area and went to Brazil. caused. Alan Bearman, professor of history the Beecher’s Bible and records of the history “The museum was what the Portuguese and dean of university libraries, said the dam- of Washburn that simply can’t be replaced.” king used as his imperial palace from 1808 ages are hard to grasp. Bearman noted that while some of the ar- until the time that he left in 1821,” Morse “In every conceivable way it’s devastat- chives and collections have been digitized, said. “Brazil’s actual act of independence ing,” Bearman said. “When a museum and an the university doesn’t have the resources was signed in that palace.” archive is lost, which has the extent of hold- to digitize everything. He was particularly After Napoleon’s reign in Europe, the Porings [as] this one, there’s no way to recover moved by what he saw. tuguese king returned to Portugal but his son, that.” “I watched some of the images from the fire Pedro II, remained in Brazil as emperor and Bearman likened this incident to the pos- in Brazil and literally my heart just broke,” established a constitutional monarchy. The sibility of other major institutions being de- Bearman said. “As someone who spent a building remained as the palace under this stroyed. lot of time in old archives, in my case pri- new leader until 1889 when Brazil became “Imagine if the British Museum and Brit- marily in the United Kingdom and New En- a republic. ish Library were gone tomorrow, The Library gland, your heart breaks. You literally tear up According to Morse, the building began its of Congress [or] the Field Museum in Chi- because you know there is no replacing the role as a museum during Pedro I’s reign. cago,” Bearman said. “When something like things from a fire and human experience is “The Portugese king, while he was in Brathat happens, there is literally no recovery. lesser for it because of that.” zil began the process of the National MuseYou’re talking about one of a kind artifacts As far as Latin American history, this di- um in 1818,” Morse said. and records, unless they’ve been digitized in saster has tremendous impact. Morse said that in terms of the collections some form or fashion, no longer exist.” “There’s so much specific history attached and archives that were housed in the museum Bearman also said that even at a local or to the building itself,” said Kim STORY CONTINUED ON PAGE 6
Young America
Easy Recipes
Touch-a-Truck
Ichabod Athlete
Shyannah Burn gives insight on a new organization, Young Americans for Liberty (YAL).
Need a quick meal? Here are meals that take 35 minutes or less to fix.
People of all ages visit downtown Topeka to get an interactive experience with various vehicles.
Learn more about James “J.J.” Brania-Hopp, senior football player.
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