Before this class, gaming felt like a world that I would never venture into and embrace. Sure, I enjoyed word games, escape rooms, board games, and more, but they didn’t feel serious enough to be considered “real games”. On top of that, I was wary of the connotations and stereotypes associated with being a gamer; my perception of the community was male-dominated, toxic, and overall, not a space for someone like me. My experiences with gaming was pretty much just limited to watching playthroughs on YouTube as a teen and wishing I could have that much fun. Seeing my boyfriend, someone I consider as a hardcore gamer, play League of Legends made gaming seem even more intimidating. Combined with my previous struggles with playing Smash Bros, I had convinced myself that I lacked the skills to be good at gaming. So I came into this class pretty intimidated even though I’d heard many positive testimonies from others.
Well, my expectations for this class were most certainly met and exceeded. The assignments were so refreshing compared to other classes and helped me heal from the burnout that I’ve been experiencing. Each sketchnote was an opportunity for me to wrangle up my creativity and doodle; I didn’t feel guilty about “wasting time” on them because I was being productive. Similarly, every week, I looked forward to doing my critical play because it gave me an excuse to take time out of my day to play a game and destress. Even though thinking about games critically was challenging, it was enjoyable trying to apply the MDA framework to draw conclusions and critiques about the games that I played. I’m truly proud of the analysis I offered for the games I played 🙂
This class truly changed my perception of what gaming means and who it’s for. I went from merely sitting on the side, observing my boyfriend play games and lamenting my inability to join him to continuing to play the assigned games after the critical play, because they were just so much fun. I played and beat PvZ after the sketchnote and even explored games beyond what was assigned. I realized that I am not a bad gamer, it’s just that I have preferences for certain genres and that I do find many games fun.
It’s crazy to think about how in 10 weeks, I managed to learn so much about game design and make two games with my wonderful teammates. Even though the process felt tedious at times because of the iterations we had to make from playtests and other feedback, I was practicing design thinking and felt so energized by it. If there ever comes another opportunity for me to work on games, I hope to center accessibility and inclusivity more in every aspect. Learning about the efforts game devs have made to make their games inclusive was quite eye-opening for me, and I hope that wherever I end up for my career, inclusivity and accessibility will always power my work.
Everybody deserves to play!