Before this class I thought games were kind of dumb. While I’ve loved word games, card games and such my entire life, I never saw the appeal of video games and the things that people buy those expensive-ass chairs and PCs for. It also somehow never struck me how much planning and testing and iteration goes into game design. In my head, people just threw together random playable steps in a game and the ones that stuck, stuck.
My biggest takeaway from this class was that games are just like book or movies. There’s art and intentionality and specific ways in which creator must expect their audience to receive it. But there’s and additional major layer of interaction. Movies don’t have to care about how consumers might fuck with their product but game developers really do and then have to account for every smart or stupid step a player might take. It’s like creating a massive massive decision tree but having to make it fun and interesting and creative and engaging.
Some of the readings in the class really stuck with me. Specifically MDA and 8 kinds of fun – which I thought was mundane when I first read it – is actually incredible insightful. The distinction between mechanics and dynamics is one that I’d never thought of and I was surprised at how every possible game I could think of could indeed be pigeonholed into those 8 kinds of fun. I also really loved the Play like a Feminist reading which forced me to reevaluate how I thought about not just games but several movies and stories. There were also major takeaways about sexuality from this reading that I really tried to incorporate into how I thought about my final project. Our protagonist is clearly queer but in a very obvious yet unaddressed way. I also think we tried to critique Stanford stereotypes while trying to avoid the discriminatory turn that can usually take.
Some of the challenges I experienced were just being creative and being able to build off of others’ ideas as if they were my own. I think this helped me grow in 2 ways:
- It made me realize creativity is not usually creative-genius-perfection but can also just be starting with something non-creative and snowballing that into something newer. Iteration isn’t bad.
- I realized ownership doesn’t have to selfish and that just because an idea wasn’t MY favorite, if the others like it, it serves me better to be fully invested in it no matter what.
If I ever continued working on games I’d love to go the cultural route. I’ve seen a lot of dystopian/alien/supernatural games but haven;t really encountered cultural variety. Like what if Papa’s Pizzeria was set in India? Could be interesting ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
