Final Class Reflection

Initially, I had only played games critically to question what they made me feel, but not necessarily how they did that (outside of narrative of course). My favorite games have always been ones that made me cry – games that invested me in a way that caused me to stay up at night thinking about how someone could have come up with that. What distinguished a good game from a great game for me, was merely that the latter left some permanent imprint on me the way a favorite childhood memory might – and frankly, some of the “greats” were so because they were such large fragments of my childhood. I can still remember the mountain scene before encountering Reshiram in Pokemon Black – my little sister peeking over my shoulder cheering me on, taking notes for her own run in Pokemon White. The beautiful part about experiencing games from a young age with my sister is that I always had someone to share it with. We always got the opposite Pokemon games (I learned that they always make two for the purpose of community building), played against each other on the Wii, and made up our own games from the random toys we got in the Salvation Army bulk bags. I always had a “Player 2” right by my side, so for the most part my childhood consisted solely of multiplayer games. I didn’t realize for many years that some games were meant to be enjoyed with only one player on the screen. 

My most vivid introduction to single player games was watching my dad play The Last of Us on the PlayStation 3. Growing up with teen parents who separated early on was difficult for a number of reasons, but I only know that looking retroactively. As a kid, I mostly held on to what was fun, and though I didn’t see my dad often, he loved to play. In a way, I think that it was important to him to be a part of our childhood through games – buying us games on the DS he grew to love, encouraging us to collect and trade Pokemon cards at recess, playing competitively with us on the Wii or Xbox. I’ll admit though, as much as I loved to play, I really loved to observe – particularly with the scarier or more difficult games. Watching my dad traverse an apocalyptic world, fight the infected, and collect sparse supplies, had me on the edge of my seat. There were times I would almost beg him to play just so I could watch. 

I’ve since moved away from home, and see my family only a few times a year. Yet, I found myself tearing up when I began my own TLOU playthrough for the first time. Hearing the music, the character voices, remembering the cutscenes and what happens when – it was almost as if I was 9 years old again, sitting on the couch watching anxiously as my dad fought off Clickers. I think that games are important in that way. I think that’s why I decided I wanted to pursue a career in game development – to create something that would stick to someone like that. 

When I began my journey in game development, I thought that playing lots of games would suffice for experience. After all, a lot of the best indie games were created by people with no formal education in game development – just a love for creating. However, I found that despite knowing in my heart what I wanted to do, I didn’t know how to implement it, since I didn’t actually know what it was that made certain games feel so good to me. Learning the formal concepts and terminology in game development that drive the creation of games was surprisingly helpful for me. It seems like common sense that mechanics influence dynamics, and that aesthetic choices will change how the game feels, but gaining new vocabulary to discuss these concepts and apply them critically to existing games actually changed the way I think about development. Playing games critically – especially ones I had played in the past – caused me to rethink design choices from an entirely new perspective. Before, I would mainly look at a game’s narrative and plot. Now, I notice the way that the world is created, the ways that onboarding is implemented into the game, and how the world is designed to encourage the player to make certain choices. Any time I make a choice as a player, a lightbulb seems to appear above my head that says, “Oh! I know why I did that!”, and I learn something new about designing games. 

Aesthetics have always been what I found most joy in designing – particularly with narrative appeal. With “Don’t Let the Bedbugs Bite”, my project team’s P2 game, I wanted to create a game that would make the player feel like they were young again. Something that would bring them back underneath the covers of their childhood comforter, and remind them of the comfort of being told a bedtime story. I had designed a lot of the narrative structure and plot, but admittedly didn’t know how to implement this mechanically. I thought I had enough experience to say I was familiar with game engines, but truthfully, most of what I’ve come to learn has been through this project. Designing narrative felt easy and intuitive – especially for a game of this size that lacked many non-linear story routes. Though I knew what I wanted the player to do within the movie playing in my head, putting that into the form of a game was much more difficult than I thought. Now, I had to ensure a player of any background may be able to traverse the world and solve the puzzles they were given – something I ashamedly hadn’t considered before. Stepping out of my own experiences and trying to imagine the game from the perspective of someone else was difficult, and so, many playtests were necessary to understand what direction we needed to go in. For example, I intuitively hover over “WASD” when I know I need to move a character, but I noticed some players hovering around the arrow keys – something I definitely didn’t consider may be intuitive to someone else. 

The playtesting experience was honestly the most beneficial in understanding how others felt when playing the game – watching their facial expressions upon different dialogue, different noises, different levels, helped me to understand what was going through their heads even when they weren’t expressing this out loud. What told me that something was finished in the game, was when I noticed enough playtesters appearing excited or happy at that moment. Whether it was smiling at a funny dialogue or looking impressed by a new art asset. In contrast, I knew things needed to change when I saw furrowed brows that were frustrated instead of engaged, or a head tilt indicating confusion instead of curiosity. I think that despite many playtesters wanting to be kind and overly approving of the game, I took note of things they didn’t want to say out loud, and found that their body language gave some of the most helpful feedback – likely because it tended to be the most critical. Through this, I learned to watch players instead of just track what they said out loud, which I believe will be a beneficial skill in my future endeavors with game design.

I grew in a very significant way through this class, particularly with group work. All of my background in game design prior to this class involved solo development, where I controlled the narrative, the art, the code, the structure. Learning to collaborate with others – particularly with ideas for direction – felt very challenging at first. It was hard to make sure everyone’s voices were heard, and we were often trying to compromise on our ideas rather than throw any away. The further we got along in the project, the more we realized that some ideas – even when we really liked them – just wouldn’t fit in the scope, and would have to be discarded. I had to learn not to take it personally when my ideas weren’t included, and remind myself that this wasn’t due to my failure as a designer, but rather, taking on more than we could handle in the scope. Learning to manage our time and schedule effectively was a challenge – especially since everyone in my group was so passionate and excited about the game. We bit off more than we could chew, and ultimately decided to take things one step at a time: Build an MVP, then add to it, then add to that, and so forth. Once we had the end to end, we were able to add smaller things without the stress of not having a complete game by the end of it. This approach is something that took a lot of trial and error, but ultimately, ended up being very helpful. 

I think that games have been and always will be effective at conveying stories, evoking emotions, and providing immersion in a way that other mediums can’t. The life lessons, poems, and stories that stuck with me the most have always been in the form of dialogue, cutscenes, and consequential choices made as a player. I feel that there is so much importance in designing games for good – to tell important stories and question important things; to provide a third space for people to escape into when their world feels too heavy; to build communities of people who share theories about a game world, who gain friendship through cooperative play, who bond over niche references and experiences as a player. The formal lessons I’ve retained from this course – MDA frameworks, design elements, etc. – will stick with me just as much as the things I’ve learned from late nights of iterating and playtesting with a group of strangers who soon felt like friends. I hope that a few years into the future I am able to release something that others love and enjoy, and look back to this class and remember the first full games I ever worked on. I couldn’t have anticipated that projects I worked on for just a few weeks would feel so fundamental to my perspective on game design, but I feel that more than anything, I’ve gained the confidence to feel like what I want to do is possible. To know that I am capable of doing something that has always felt like an out of reach dream is more than I could have ever wanted to take away from a 10-week class – for that I am eternally grateful.