Final Class Reflection – Noe Chicas-Aranda

“I believe we’ve reached the end of our journey. All that remains is to collapse the innumerable possibilities before us. Are you ready to learn what comes next?” – Outer Wilds

 

Outer Wilds was the first game that made me cry. Before playing it, I didn’t view games as a platform for learning or self-reflection. To me, they were just “fun,” though I couldn’t even explain what kind of fun. But after taking this class, I began to understand why Outer Wilds moved me so deeply. It was the way the game embedded its narrative, the structure of its game loop, and the way it asked you to listen. All of it made me feel like I was uncovering something true, not just about the game, but about myself. Before this, I thought of games mostly in terms of mechanics. You jump, you run, you die, you win. But CS247G and Outer Wilds taught me that games could speak. They could grieve. They could wonder. They could hope.

 

One of the hardest challenges I faced this quarter, and throughout my first year here, came from self-doubt. Being far from home, feeling isolated, and constantly feeling pressured to take the maximum number of units while searching for opportunities has been a lot. It has hurt my self-esteem and made me question whether anything I did really mattered. There were moments when I felt like I had no place at Stanford. Like I was falling behind. Like I was too small to be seen. Outer Wilds mirrored that feeling. Its universe is vast. Planets crumble, stars collapse, and no one ever comes to save you. But the game doesn’t see you as insignificant. It teaches you that being small doesn’t mean you don’t matter. You matter because you choose to care. You choose to wonder. You choose to create.

You Choose To Wonder

I felt the same way in this class. Amid all the pressure and doubt, I found something that made me feel seen. I found people who cared about creating something meaningful. I found a space where wonder and creativity mattered. Our game was not just an assignment, it was a story we wanted to tell, a message we wanted to share. We used embedded narrative to slowly reveal meaning through visual storytelling, dialogue, and environmental clues. We wanted players to feel that same quiet sense of discovery when making it. We wanted them to wonder.

 

Our project, however, was ambitious. There were bugs we couldn’t fix in time. There were features we had to let go of. Life got in the way. People got busy. But we kept going. We supported each other. We adapted. What I will remember most is not the stress or multiple broken code. It is the time we spent together. I remember missing a picnic my group planned and thinking that was it, but one of them said, “We will make sure to have some next year .” That moment stayed with me. I realized that I had formed friendships that would last just beyond this class. 

The Friends We Make Along The Way

(Art by Aimen)

I’ve grown, not just as a developer or a designer, but as a person. I used to be scared to say I wanted to make games. It felt too far away, too ambitious for someone like me. I didn’t grow up with the tools or language to build the things I loved. But this class changed that. It gave me the vocabulary, the foundation, and the space to try. I took CS106A and started to enjoy coding, but it was still intimidating, but this class reminded me that games are about sharing, about storytelling, and about inviting others into something you care about. That is the kind of developer I want to be.

Games are about sharing, about storytelling, and about inviting others into something you care about

This summer, I will start making my own game. I will take what I’ve learned about game design, narrative structure, emotional arcs, and player agency and turn it into something new. I know now that everything I build from here on out will be shaped by this moment, by this class, and by this community. I still feel small sometimes. But now I know that small things can carry meaning. That what we create matters. 

 

“This is where everything ends and everything begins.”

 

Thank you to Christina Wodtke, TAs, and Friends!