Jordan Sparks of Shining Spark Entertainment On The Future of Gaming
My work got them to have conversations they otherwise would not have had, and they’re going to keep thinking about what they experienced long after the game is over. That is the root of what inspiring social change is. I made no money on either of those projects, but based on that alone, I would consider them both hugely successful games. It is my hope that Civic Story does the same.
As a part of our series about what’s around the corner for the gaming industry, we had the pleasure of interviewing Jordan Sparks.
Jordan Sparks is a Black Multimedia Artist, Designer and Educator from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is a dynamic Producer, Director, Artist, UX Designer, Animator and Voice Actor, known for his wide-ranging multimedia projects, including the acclaimed Spark Comics web series and the thought-provoking An/Other video game. Jordan’s work revolves around using art and digital experiences to entertain, inspire social change and create a better world, including with his latest game release Civic Story (available on both Steam and Itch.io).
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share the “backstory” behind what brought you to this particular career path?
Hi, I’m Jordan Sparks, a Multimedia Artist, Designer and Educator, and the creator of Civic Story. I put ‘Multimedia’ in my title as a shorthand because my career has me working on all sorts of mediums. I do video, animation, illustration, comics, games, sound, voiceover, 3D printing, photography and many other things. Art, media, tech and education have long been my calling.
Ever since I was a kid, I was obsessed with art and computers. I was always drawing and figuring out whatever technology I could get my hands on. I also loved watching movies, TV and cartoons, and would always wonder how they were made — so I tried making them! I would teach myself how to edit videos, create animations, record voices, shoot photos and other things necessary to put together a final project. As a teenager, I was always experimenting and pushing myself with new projects for fun, and eventually, when I was finishing high school, I decided art was the direction I wanted to go in life. I didn’t know what form that would take, so I targeted Toronto Metropolitan University (then called Ryerson University)’s New Media program, which felt like it was a very wide experimental program that used art and tech.
From here, my career path was set in stone by a series of happy accidents. I got a tech research internship at the University, where I worked for all five of my student years. That job and my studies exposed me to a lot of technologies and ideas. Midway through my studies, I joined and somehow became an Executive Leader of the University’s game development club, despite having no game development experience. Prior to this, I liked games, but had zero desire to ever make them (and I never even intended to join that club, much less lead it). However, I stepped up and changed the focus of the group to teach others how to make games instead and foster a sense of community.
I began teaching and organizing game-related workshops as well, which incidentally started my career in both games and education. As it turns out, I had a knack for them! I keep saying ‘accidentally,’ and I really do mean it; none of these were ever intended. However, these accidental strokes of luck changed and expanded my art. I kept making more projects with more technologies and meeting many new people while wandering into many other happy accidents that shaped my career.
Eventually, I would settle on my research on what I call ‘Games For Social Change’ — games that provide commentary on certain cultural issues to inspire people. Civic Story was the first concept I ever wanted to make, but it was a very rough idea at the time. Instead, I would get both my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, focusing on this area and using my research to create two other acclaimed games called Who Are You? and An/Other, which you can play for free online.
An/Other was especially popular and got me interviewed by a lot of people, such as the Toronto Star and CityNews. People came to know me from the games and education work, so people in those spaces have been hiring me for those things ever since. This led me to work at places like the Royal Ontario Museum, the Hand Eye Society and even Humber College. Eventually, that all led to me incorporating my studio, Shining Spark Entertainment and talking to you today about Civic Story.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I have many stories, but I feel like the most interesting story was at the start of my post-graduate career.
First, a little backstory. As a child, the Royal Ontario Museum and the Ontario Science Centre were my favourite places in the world. We’d go on school field trips there all the time. Even as a kid, I always wanted to work there and was fascinated with them. As I grew up, I forgot about that dream, since I was neither a scientist nor an archaeologist.
Amazingly, my first job after graduating was at the Royal Ontario Museum, where I worked for over five years running their Makerspace and teaching children who came on field trips, much like I did growing up. That taught me a lot about teaching, as well as many things about culture and history. It really shaped my teaching style and how I approach creative learning, which influenced Civic Story. I loved that job and took a lot of pride in my work because I was living a dream come true. I learned a lot, got to see a lot of things, went on many cool adventures and I had a blast teaching thousands of kids.
Additionally, a few months after I started working at the museum, I got a short-lived side job elsewhere that had me temporarily teach kids at the Ontario Science Centre for a few months. Having the realization that I was technically working at both the museum and the science centre at the same time at that point made me unspeakably happy.
I consider these the most interesting parts of my career because they were my personal dreams come true, and set the more educational tone of my career. If I went back in time and told little Jordan he’d eventually work at both of those places, it would blow his mind.
The lesson learned: Never give up on your dreams.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful toward who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I have no end of people to thank for where I am today. I could go on all day about specific people and stories that have helped me personally and professionally, but I will take a moment to highlight a few special people that I could never have succeeded without.
First, my family has been so supportive, but I want to highlight my parents, Marilyn and Dwayne, as well as my Aunt Sherry. All of three of them were instrumental in raising me to thrive on my curiosity and strive to be a good man. I owe them everything that I am and appreciate their support in what I do.
Next, I want to thank everyone who helped with Civic Story’s development because there is absolutely no way I could have made this by myself. Many people were involved, but I want to spotlight our main team: Yash Kulkarni, Gillian Blekkenhorst, Indigo Doyle, Zed Poirier, Nate Tannis, Laura Maier, Laura Burdi and Felix Arifin. Each of them enhanced the project far beyond my wildest dreams, and I couldn’t ask for a better and more passionate development team. They absolutely deserve so much credit, and I’m proud to have worked with them and everyone else who worked with us. Civic Story is our story.
A good friend of mine, Kenneth Cho, also had a big hand in my success. Ken was the first person to invite me to show An/Other at an event and seemed to see my potential long before I ever did. He’s perhaps the biggest reason why so many other people would later discover and still talk to me about An/Other today. That led to a lot of my success in the games field. He believed in me as both a mentor and friend, and when he retired from the Hand Eye Society, I was honoured that he chose me to succeed him. This has kept me very involved in the gaming community.
Finally, I do want to shout out to two of my old professors: Steve Daniels and Dr. Kris Alexander. I’ve had many good teachers that have helped me grow, but I consider them the most influential. Both Steve and Kris inspired me to reimagine what was possible and taught me not to be so afraid of my ideas. When I was unsure of myself as a student, they helped give me the confidence to go forward with projects I was scared to do — confidence that would drive me to develop Civic Story. They were also both hugely inspirational for how I would approach teaching, especially after I became a professor myself.
There are so many more friends, family, teachers and colleagues that I am immensely grateful for, but they all know who they are. I wouldn’t be where I am without all their support.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I wake up every day asking myself, “How can I save the world today?” and try to find answers to that impossible question. To me, saving the world can mean helping someone, making them laugh, being a shoulder to cry on, looking out for people or even just holding the door open for the person behind you. It doesn’t matter if it’s helping a whole bunch of people or just one person, helping people is just who I am, and I try to pass this ambition through my work and to my students.
In my career, I try to help people in various ways. A lot of people tend to ask me for advice, be it personal or professional, so I’ll coach them through it or connect them with someone I know who can help. I try to make art, like Civic Story, that people enjoy and that sometimes challenges how people think of the world to make us better citizens. If I find a job or opportunity that would be good for someone, I pass it along to them. As an educator and professor, I try to put in a lot of extra time and availability to help my students. I don’t like to brag about a lot of this, because it’s just what I do. However, I guess I’ve grown a reputation for it because people always seem to come to me when they need help. It’s not always easy, but I’m happy when I can help someone else succeed.
Civic Story is just one of the things I’ve made with the goal of inspiring all of us to vote for a better world in my own way. As many of my students will tell you, I believe everyone can do something unique to help make the world a better place, and I try to act on any opportunity I can to do even a little bit of good. If everyone did that, I think we could all really save the world.
Okay, fantastic. Let’s now move to the main focus of our discussion. Can you tell us about the technological innovations in gaming that you are working on?
Civic Story is what we call a visual novel; a very simple interactive story. However, what’s innovative about the project is its purpose. Many games are about shooting aliens, getting high scores and fighting monsters. That’s great! However, games are capable of so much more. I feel like there’s a lot of untapped potential in games for discovering things about the real world and inspiring social change. That’s the focus of my research for Games For Social Change.
Civic Story takes research from various different fields, such as education, economics, history, Indigenous knowledge and civics. We translate that research into a creative fiction that relates how many of the things we take for granted are affected by politics, specifically Canadian politics. When was the last time you played a game that taught you about Canadian politics? If they exist, there are very few.
My team and I wanted to use interactive game technologies to help people not only learn about politics and civics, but also to be able to connect how these issues and discussions might affect their lives. Rather than make this a serious affair, we do it as a comedic and colourful parody that tries to invoke the opposite of the depressing feelings politics tends to be associated with today.
Our voter turnout and rate of civic engagement in Canada is at an all-time low, especially with youth. We want Civic Story to be an experience that helps mobilize our politically apathetic society to vote and get involved in their community. Through its comedic writing, easy controls and quirky characters, we hope to change people’s perception of politics and make them care about their power to determine the future.
How do you think this might disrupt the status quo?
I think Civic Story disrupts the status quo already by merely existing. I cannot tell you how many people told me that making Canadian politics seem interesting was “impossible.” Civic Story proves them wrong. However, the game also seeks to revolutionize the status quo in other long-term ways.
First, I think this will be a great starting point for many people who are confused about politics, don’t care much about civics and are politically apathetic. Statistics show that our voter turnout rate is terrible, in part because people don’t relate to or understand the political climate. They don’t think politics affects them. Even worse, most of our political attention is drawn to the United States.
Civic Story challenges that by showing you the social consequences of political decisions that are relatable to most people. More so, it discusses Canadian politics, something that is often ignored in the media in favour of American politics, meaning that both Canadians and other people around the world will get a unique political perspective.
I think it’s important to have experiences that don’t treat the USA as the centre of the world. I want Civic Story to disrupt the status quo by inspiring more people to vote and make their voices heard within their communities and, more broadly, their country. Imagine how much more interesting and beneficial our elections would be if the politicians couldn’t count on most of the country never voting! That would change the status quo massively for everyone in countless ways (and, I’d argue, for the better).
Secondly, I also want to change the status quo by challenging people about what they think a game could be. Games are often regulated as toys in the public mind. We don’t often think that a game could teach us about the world. This is not only a sentiment shared by game players, but also game developers. I want to show that games are capable of so much more than people give them credit for. I want more people, from players to game makers, to recognize the potential of this medium and make more games for social change on a variety of subjects. Hopefully, Civic Story will inspire more games that ethically try to spark change.
You, of course, know that games and toys are not simply entertainment, but they can be used for important purposes. What is the “purpose” or mission behind your company? How do you think you are helping people or society?
I founded Shining Spark Entertainment for one purpose: creating multimedia for social change. This is a natural evolution of the ‘Games for social change’ focus I had as a student and an extension of my passion for helping people. Our mission is to create impactful media that challenges the status quo, showcases diverse researched perspectives and inspires a better world.
We believe that by offering unique experiences fueled by creativity and research, people can learn not just about the world, but about themselves as they are exposed to different histories and perspectives. All consumers of games and media are somewhat affected by the content they experience. We want our players to deeply ponder what they learn through our work and inspire conversations they may never have had. I believe those conversations greatly help us improve as people and as a society.
In the case of Civic Story, politics can sometimes be a rather taboo subject no one knows how to talk about. However, if we can inspire someone to ask questions and have more conversations about how political decisions affect others, I think that’s the start of bettering our society and sparking true social change.
I’m very interested in the interface between games and education. How do you think more people (parents, teachers etc.) or institutions (work, school etc.) can leverage games and gamification to enhance education?
I believe games have a lot of potential in the education space, which some people might scoff at, but hear me out. In games, even non-digital games, we embody whatever we play as, be it a monster, a samurai, an astronaut, a knight or anything else. When we do anything as these characters, we don’t say the character did it, we say “I” did it. We take ownership of our decisions in the game. We feel, even temporarily, that we are part of this new world and whatever story we are affecting by participating in it.
You can see that whether you’re playing Super Mario or a game of chess. So, when it comes to learning and different learning styles, I feel that a well-made game could greatly help people take ownership of their own learning and help someone relate to the lesson at hand.
Civic Story, is about politics and civics — some of the most boring things people can think of. However, it doesn’t have to be such a lifeless subject. What if politics and civics were wrapped in a story with colourful characters? What if we could interact with certain things or learn about civic content through a funny story? That’s what Civic Story is trying to do to make politics and civics more interesting, enjoyable and relatable to learn.
This is important as schools tend not to promote civic education. Ontario high school students have a very short civics course, just half of a semester, which doesn’t give students enough time to truly learn its importance. Even worse, the government always threatens to remove it, and other provinces don’t necessarily have any mandatory civics education at all. Students are coming of voting age without any idea of what it means to be a citizen. I decided that if the nation would not contribute to further civics education, I would find a new and entertaining way to do so. The result is Civic Story.
For some people reading this, I know the thought of games as a serious educational medium might seem impossible. However, I believe if parents, teachers and others could stop thinking of games as mere children’s toys, but instead something just as respectable as films, documentaries, music or books, they could see the vast potential games have as a teaching tool. In fact, I’d argue that all games are teaching tools, just in ways we don’t often recognize.
For games specifically about learning, a lot of research needs to be involved, which can be intimidating to some, but I consider it rewarding. I tell all my students that “research is the backbone of every great project,” and I know it definitely helped us make Civic Story an enjoyable experience. If someone reading this interview is doubtful about my beliefs on learning through games, all I ask is that you be open to playing Civic Story and give it a chance to change your mind.
How would you define a “successful” game? Can you share an example of a game or toy that you hold up as an aspiration?
I think success can be defined in different ways. Most people will define it by a game’s sales numbers, which is fair. While I certainly hope that Civic Story is a financial success and that you all buy it, I have a different metric for success with my game projects. Inspiring social change is at the heart of what I do so, to me, I identify success by how much my work affects people. I can give you an example.
Civic Story is my first commercial game, but as a student, there were two games I made for my undergraduate and Master’s thesis projects: Who Are You? and An/Other (you can play both for free online). Since my student days, I’ve shown these games to countless people at many events. When people come to my booth, I invite them to play without telling them what my game is about. I watch them play. I see the crowd around my booth watching. I see everyone’s reactions. Then someone will come up to me with questions about what they experienced, tell me how they feel and discuss the topics in the game. That alone is success to me.
My work got them to have conversations they otherwise would not have had, and they’re going to keep thinking about what they experienced long after the game is over. That is the root of what inspiring social change is. I made no money on either of those projects, but based on that alone, I would consider them both hugely successful games. It is my hope that Civic Story does the same.
I’m inspired by many games and media that affected my work. A huge inspiration for Civic Story was Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, a visual novel game series that similarly makes a ‘boring’ subject like law far more interesting through a colourful legal parody. However, I consider the most influential game I’ve ever played to be a free web game called Loneliness by Jordan Magnuson.
Loneliness is so short that it only lasts a few minutes to play and is a very simple game about a single dot. Yet, that single dot unlocked more emotions in me than most games I’ve ever played. I related to it deeply in a way I couldn’t put into words.
When I began my journey into game development, I was unsure what kinds of games I wanted to make. I wasn’t interested in making typical shooters or platformers like most people. However, after playing Loneliness, I realized that these were the type of games I wanted to make; games that make people feel and learn about themselves. It expanded what I thought games could be, and I aspire to replicate the emotions that Loneliness made me feel.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I want to inspire a movement that has the public reimagine their relationship to games and media; to be able to enjoy it while being more aware of what’s being expressed. As we discussed, games are often seen as toys, but they’re capable of so much more. Even board games and games from days long gone by can teach you a lot about history and culture. Similarly, I think our video games today express a lot about our culture as well. I feel there is a far wider and deeper spectrum of feeling that games are capable of inspiring in us beyond just ‘fun,’ and that — more than anything — is the mindset I hope to inspire in people with my work and this interview.
All of my games were created with this mission in mind and greatly succeeded locally. However, part of the reason I created Civic Story was to prove this theory on a wider scale and inspire others to make Games For Social Change. We may be trailblazers, but I never wanted to be the only one. I want Civic Story to inspire other creatives to occupy the Games for Social Change space because I don’t want to be the only one making games like these.
I want someone else to make games about other issues like the ocean, cultural experiences, the environment, different politics and other things. A student once asked me if I would consider making a game about the immigrant experience. Instead, I told them that I hope that is the game they end up making, because that’s something that they can contribute to the field. We hope Shining Spark Entertainment can lead the charge for others. So, if you want to make games and are as passionate about a particular issue as I am about getting people to be involved in politics, then I encourage you to make that game, too.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Growing up, my Ddad would never fail to start my week by telling me the same three things: “Have a good week, be a good boy and learn everything.” That was a life lesson that I still take with me every day, so I will pass that along to the readers. Have a good life. Be good. Learn everything.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
You can follow Shining Spark Entertainment and find our socials on our website at ShiningSparkEnt.com. You can also find my personal work and Social Media handles gathered on my website at GrindSpark.com.
Civic Story is available for PC on:
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
Thank you for having me!
