Before taking CS 247G, I had a somewhat negative perception of games. I didn’t play games very much, so many of the games we discussed in class were new to me. I had heard of a few famous ones like Monument Valley and The Legend of Zelda, but I had never seriously considered playing them. This was because I thought games distracted people and took away valuable time.
However, my perspective changed significantly through this class. One of the most important things I learned is that play is not the opposite of productivity. Proper relaxation, enjoyment, and stress relief are valuable and necessary parts of life. Through the Critical Play assignments, I was exposed to many different types of games that I would never have discovered on my own. I began to appreciate games as carefully designed experiences that communicate ideas and emotions.
At this point, I found myself thinking more like a game designer. Before, I only focused on whether I enjoyed a game or not. Now, I started asking questions such as: Why did the designer make this choice? What emotion is this mechanic trying to create? How does the game guide the player without directly telling them what to do? These ways of thinking have stayed with me and changed how I experience games.
Creating our own game was also a valuable learning experience. To be honest, I was intimidated at the beginning of the class. I never considered myself a particularly creative person, and coming up with a game from scratch felt overwhelming. Some of the early activities in class were part of the reason I felt pressured because they required a lot of interaction with people I had just met. I easily ran out of social energy during those moments. I was also always impressed by the creativity of others and often felt discouraged when comparing my ideas to theirs.
However, working through those challenges helped me grow. I learned that creativity can be developed through iteration and collaboration. During our game development process, I learned how important playtesting is. Watching players interact with our game often revealed things that we had never noticed ourselves. Their confusion and moments of discovery helped us improve the game and better understand players’ thought processes. I think I will continue playing games occasionally, but more importantly, I will analyze them from a designer’s perspective. If I get the opportunity to make more games in the future, I want to focus more on how to bring every player into the magic circle in a social game.
