Final Reflection
Before taking CS 377G, I thought I was not a gamer. I associated games with violent characters, “first person shooters,” and absurd cartoons I could never see myself relating with. I associated games with groups of nerdy guys who gathered around and an exclusive culture, one I could never be a part of — even if I wanted to be a part of it. Thus, I never truly considered games or gaming as an avenue I ever wanted to go down. I enjoyed board games like Monopoly and Candy Land, but thought little about how they were made or the messages they were trying to convey. Lastly, I had no idea that games could even be meant to teach someone something or convey socially meaningful messages; I certainly had played educational games, but had never given them further thought, I took CS 377G because I had heard wonderful reviews about the class and thought it could potentially be a good first step into the world of games; at least I would be able to see what gaming was about.
CS 377G itself was an eye-opening experience. During the class, I learned that gaming is not just for a certain sub-group of people. In fact, to make good games that are as fun as the board games I played in my childhood, it takes incredibly diverse perspectives. I loved the three different projects that focused on different kinds of games — educational, interactive fiction, and systems. I enjoyed working with different groups of people in the class and constantly “switching it up”; it gave me greater perspective into how people process different kinds of problems. In particular, I did not know interactive fiction in itself was a genre and loved the storytelling aspect of this game; before this class, I would have never associated gaming with writing stories (which I do enjoy)! In fact, when first writing my interactive fiction, I wrote three different story lines and assessed how engaging each would be before jumping into actually developing the interactive fiction work itself. Playtesting with other people was also a very unique form of user testing compared to other HCI classes I have taken where user interactions have been limited to straightforward surveys and interviews. Playtesting was fascinating because I got to observe how people had fun. I was often surprised at how vocal my playtesters were when they were engaged in the game experience; it was almost as if they were in a different reality. Seeing group dynamics during playtesting was intriguing as well. It was incredible how many pairs or groups of friends got competitive with each other, making comments around being the sore loser or excited winner. I appreciated that every project involved an extensive playtesting component and found doing this part of the class especially rewarding.
After this class, I have learned that games can be a way to make a statement about almost any issue close to one’s heart — climate change, immigration, or the arts. Games are a completely different medium through which we can affect change; fun is a good way to mask more serious messages. I also learned that when designing a game, it is extremely important to be very intentional with every part of the gaming system. For instance, when designing the immigration game for project three, our team had to be very deliberate about how we wanted to represent different facets of government and decision-making when implementing immigration policy. Designing a serious game also involves conducting a good amount of research into the theme or topic being presented; it is important to not trivialize the subject at hand. For instance, when developing my interactive fiction on healthcare and the doctor/patient relationship into my final project, I conducted extensive secondary research, reading two novels written by a doctor, in order to imbibe the right emotions for my work. This was surprisingly effective in helping me develop the correct kind of empathy I needed when developing my interactive fiction work.
When I make games in the future, I will certainly value and treasure all that I have learned in this class. I will make efforts to find diverse groups of people to play my game and test it. I will be intentional about the systems I model and how I develop them. I will work with diverse groups of people when creating a game; I may even co-create with a subject matter expert if I am making a game about a serious theme. Ultimately, I know that any game I make will attempt to have a deeper message and theme than just having fun; thus, understanding how play interacts with serious subject matter is a topic I hope to keep delving into. While I may not become a professional game developer, I am glad I got exposure to this field through this class and have been inspired to continue exploring it.
