Designed by College Students - Entertaining, Educational Games for Middle School Children Are Free to Play
AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE via COLLEGIATE PRESSWIRE)--Dec. 5, 2006--The Liemandt Foundation, the nonprofit family foundation that created and has been running the "Hidden Agenda" educational video game development contest for college students (www.hiddenagenda.com) since 2003, today announced that the winning games from past years of the contest are available online for middle school children to play.
The games, whose beta versions are available now at www.hagames.com, were designed to be as entertaining as today's top games, but with a twist - they "secretly" teach middle school subjects such as science and math. With today's announcement, the games are offered on a highly interactive web site so that students around the world can compete against each other - at no charge to anyone.
The winning games, created by students from schools such as University of Southern California, Pomona University, and University of Central Florida, were all selected by a panel that included middle school students and teachers, game development legends such as NCSoft's Richard "Lord British" Garriott, educational game gurus such as Marc Prensky, and instructional design experts from the University of Texas at Austin. The judging criteria weighed entertainment value of the games first and secondarily evaluated how well each game would teach middle school subjects. Each year, $25,000 is awarded to the winning team.
Along with the launch of the new HAGames site, the Liemandt Foundation is announcing that it is holding the contest again this year. College students have until December 15, 2006 to express interest by completing a short entry form on www.hiddenagenda.com, and entrants have until May 2007 to build their games. The next $25,000 prize will be awarded in the summer, and games will continue to be added to the HAGames site. Students are using the contest as an independent study project for college credit, to build their work portfolio for employment opportunities, and for the opportunity to interact with experts and build a game that may help younger students learn middle school fundamentals.
About The Liemandt Foundation
The Liemandt Foundation is a nonprofit family organization with a primary operating focus on improving education through technology. The goal of the Foundation's Stealth Education Project and its Hidden Agenda Contest is to facilitate the development of video games that rival the quality and game-play of today's top sellers, while teaching K-12 scholastic information along the way. Once stealth education is proven possible for middle school subjects, the Foundation sees no end to the effect that the educational games will have on children throughout the world.
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