One of my biggest takeaways from this project is the affordances of an open-ended assignment. Obviously, we will complete several more projects in this course, but this is the project with the fewest constraints, which provides a lot of freedom. However, it is also the project we complete with the least amount of learning and consideration under our belts. I understand the rationale for assigning the project with the fewest constraints at the beginning because, in some ways, that feels easier and requires less prior learning. Still, my biggest emotion leaving Project 1 is a feeling of missed opportunity. Seeing how Emma was able to create a game that, in my opinion, moved the needle on a passion of hers, I regret choosing something somewhat fun and useful but not particularly consequential or related to my passions.
One of my preconceptions before building this game was that game design, while iterative and progressive within the design of a particular game, wasn’t particularly progressive across games. In other words, even though I had made several games in Design for Play, I didn’t assume that much of what I had learned in that process would be transferable to this game. However, this was proven false when, without even thinking about it, I pulled out sticky notes during our first playthrough to designate locations for objects. Even though I didn’t recognize this as information design at the time, or as directly relevant to a lecture I had previously seen, when we returned to the topic of information design, the connection became abundantly obvious.
One of the preconceptions I am still holding as tentatively true is that creating a game that fosters deep learning, or I guess in this context, a deeply serious game, requires time to innovate on the mechanics. I assumed, and I believe for the most part this was true, having played only three of the five games, that most of the learning would be surface-level and questionably persistent. Design fixation leads people, especially under time pressure, to create things that are similar or adjacent to known solutions. In my experience, games that successfully create deep and lasting learning have to be creative and innovative in how they achieve that goal.
Within the context of game design, I learned the importance of conscious design choices in the interface, whether digital or analog. I was amazed at how much information could be offloaded onto our travel journal. However, my biggest takeaway is that I want to be more thoughtful about the topics of the games I create, which I think is supported by the criteria and requirements of the course. This project felt somewhat like a checkbox to be checked rather than something that moved my broader thinking forward or suggested interesting ideas for future work. It is my hope that P3, in particular, will be an opportunity to blend my interests and build something that I respect as much as I respect Cabinets of Curiosity.
