- What values you see in the game, and how they are reflected in the choices made by the game designer (This is what we’ll grade you, the reviewer, on for this “Values at Play” assignment.)
- Thoughts on your experience relevant to the objectives in the rubric , specifically:
- How well did the game get you to care about the given topic or cause?
- How well did the game’s use of the medium fit the story?
- Did it have choices that were interesting and consequential to you? (Did any make you really stop and think?)
- At least 1 thing you appreciated or thought was awesome
- At least 1 thing you think they could improve on, if they were to turn it into their P4 project
Where’s my Son
- I think the main value in the game is embodying a person with alzheimers and understanding their confusing thoughts and feelings. As you play through the game, you realize that the world around you doesn’t make sense, and the game keeps looping in a way that is hard to understand. Another value is the scariness of having alzheimer’s disease. There are scary things that keep happening throughout that are again, difficult to understand, such as the loud chattering and someone injecting you with a sedative.
- The game got me to have a lot of empathy for those with alzheimer’s disease. The way that the first-person story was written helped me understand just how scary and confusing the surrounding world was to the main character. The game’s use of the medium definitely fit the story because it got me extremely confused the whole time wondering if I just wasn’t comprehending the story correctly. I eventually realized that I was supposed to be confused. I felt like none of the choices were very consequential, but this was interesting because it showed that nothing you did as a person with alzheimers could bring you any satisfaction.
- I think that the mechanic that was especially helpful was the endless loop. For a while, I kept looping wondering when I was finally going to reach the ending, and I was super confused. I eventually realized that I had tried all the choices and that the game was never going to end.
- I wasn’t sure what the purpose of the “Kick the door” or “Scream for help” part was. This part made me select one first, and then I was told that “No one came at all,” and then I had to click one again. I would make clear why you are making the player click twice instead of just once to move on in the story.
Pretendistan
- One value in the game is the ridiculousness of government and politics. The game shows that when people start asking for their basic rights, things become unruly and violent. Another value in the game is the bond of family. In the storyline that I played through, the main character, James, goes out of his way to help his sister find the medicine that she needs.
- I wasn’t super sure what the story was trying to get me to care about. It was unclear to me why the world had gotten to be the way it was after people started asking for their rights, and I therefore wasn’t sure what the problem I was supposed to care about was. If I was supposed to care about the bond between family members, I also felt like other than knowing that Anna was my sister, I wasn’t sure why I needed to care about Anna. I felt like the medium fit the story because it allowed players to make choices in a chaotic world in which there are difficult decisions to be made. Some of these choices were really interesting, such as whether you should decide to stop and help someone in a bad situation, even if it means that you might suffer.
- I really liked the various difficult choices that I had to make throughout the game, such as figuring out how to get the medicine that Anna so desperately needed. I think that the choices created a huge sense of urgency that doesn’t exist in day-to-day life.
- Like I mentioned before, I was not sure why people asking for their rights led to international unrest because this was explained poorly. I think the game would be improved if this explanation was better explained at the beginning.
