Minecraft Hunger Games

Putting aside concerns of slight age-inappropriateness for a moment, I came across an interesting example of self-directed, virtual world intertextuality in class this morning.

The children’s were using the iPads before school (they’d come in because it was icy outside) and had chosen to play on the Minecraft mobile app. It soon became apparent that there was an in-game chase going on, with four players participating on separate devices; this turned out to be the children acting out their own version of The Hunger Games!

I’m aware that some children have been reading the book recently – and also that maps exist that recreate the hunger games arena in Minecraft – but it was nevertheless interesting to see the children electing to combine a text with a game in this way, in a similar way to our earlier lesson that mixed Kensuke’s Island with Minecraft.