As I reflect on my childhood, I vividly remember spending countless hours on games. I spent the first five years of my life in China, so when I moved to Los Angeles for kindergarten, it felt like I was thrown into a whole new world with new people speaking a new a language. Given all the isolation and disconnectedness that you might expect comes with limited Engish-speaking skills, games became my gateway to a world where language limitations ceased to exist. Cooking Mama, Kirby, and Super Mario Bros allowed me to immerse myself in captivating virtual worlds, where I was trusted to use a knife to chop vegetables or fight off strange-looking creatures with superpowers. Fun always came first, and language was secondary.
Due to these childhood experiences, I always appreciated how accessible games were to everyone. Even if you cannot read the words on the screen, good games are designed to teach you how to play through playing, so I can personally understand how important well-thought-out onboarding and tutorials are. This class concept and specifically the “How I Got My Mom to Play Through Plants vs. Zombies” talk will always stick with me. Because you never know– if you can bring some joy to a lonely kid somewhere in the world, I think it’s pretty worth it.
In this class, I read, sketchnoted, critically analyzed, designed, tested, and most importantly, played. 247G was definitely one of the more fun classes that I’ve taken at Stanford, and I took away that play is so very necessary for a fulfilling life. The opposite of play is indeed depression, and I plan on taking life on with a silly, lighthearted perspective because it really is never that serious. I hope to implement this value of play into my work by chasing only what I feel sparks my passion and creativity and into my relationships by making people laugh.
But on a more serious note, by focusing on game formal elements, types of fun, and the power of interactive experiences for week after week, I have grown into a better designer. This course helped me realize that design doesn’t have to be serious. It can be fun, and fun only makes a product more memorable and enjoyable for users.
But with the ups, there were also a couple downs. Despite struggling with team dynamics in the first project and having to learn how to work with a random team in the second project, I am proud of the work I’ve accomplished. I would like to believe that I also grew to become a better team member along the way.
Since I mostly worked on physical games this quarter, I hope that next time, I will try to design a digital game and learn how to program on Unity. This will also give me the opportunity to explore the implementation of soundtracks, which is especially exciting for me as a musician.
Overall, games are such powerful tools for education, socialization, and general happiness. I love the ingenuity and thoughtfulness behind designing games and hope to continue doing so! Sending so many thanks and hugs to the teaching team and Nina :))
