I greatly enjoyed reading the chapter about the history of educational video games. I admit, long before I became nervous about playing games (performance anxiety maybe?) I enjoyed playing The Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? I must have played both 100 times over the course of elementary school.
I can still remember basic takeaways from Oregon Trail. If you started with a profession that had more money, you would likely be more successful. If you started at the wrong time of year, chances were that you would not survive or your party would not be in good condition. That, and if you shot a buffalo it would feed you forever and you couldn't always carry all the meat back. My sister and I liked to hunt in that game, what can I say.
As for Carmen I think that game was best for kids that were not like me. I enjoyed memorizing ridiculous and useless geography facts, so I would use the game to test my memory. In middle school, I could get to chasing Carmen before I had to reach for the Almanac, which I thought was cheating. At the time it had never occurred to me that this was a goal of the game. Actually, Ben Sawyer was discussing at Meaningful Play 2010 how games need to push out more. Clearly, this game was already doing just that. It is funny how easy that is to ignore. Pushing out of the game isn't new, it just isn't common. By the way, I never caught Carmen Sandiego. The bell always rang before I could catch her. Everyday I would almost have her and “riiiing” computer class was over.
On a random game note, I think I played a text based adventure game in that class too. We hadn't gotten a technology grant, so our lab was full of … Apple IIC+s. We had a dot matrix printer too. That is life in a rural school.
As for Schell this week, I am enjoying once again. Now that I have been working on some games, it is easy to see how much I enjoy working with game elements. I think before my preferences was 1) story 2)aesthetics 3)mechanics. Now I think mechanics is 2) but they are all pulling more equal weight. Of course, to me, some aesthetics are directly related to the story, same with mechanics. I think I have a better grasp of how they tie together. I think it is easy when looking at games to put the elements in to silos. While some are more a priority than others, to create an effective game, they have to overlap, or back to the Antonisse & Bouchard talk, resonate.
This leads us, conveniently to theme. Isn't it funny how on a second read, this organization makes complete and total sense? Themes are experience based. They provide mood, tone, unity. They are not “theme” in the sense of a literary element. That is infinitely overcomplicated and another great reason why I am not pursuing a Ph. D. in English.
Last semester we talked in Carrie Heeter's class about endogenous and exogenous games. Basically, exogenous games appeared to not take full use of a unifying theme and endogenous games did. Exogenous games don't resonate. They beat information into your head, but that can be done by recitation, like times tables, poetry, and audio-lingual methods of language instruction. The mechanics, an important element, do not relate to the unifying theme. I'd argue my classroom frequently suffered from the same issue.
My classroom on Multicultural Day, resonated. It rocked. Kids learned. I wasn't pulling teeth. No one was sent to detention and no parents were called. A good theme, with all the elements pointed in to it, sucks you into the world. To reference Inception, it makes the dreamer not realize that the dream was created by someone else. Not that breaking that “reality” will cause angry projections to come chasing after you. However … in the classroom, behavior problems “manifest”.
So where do these ideas come from.
If you are like me, Jesse Schell sayings “Listen to your subconscious” caused a snicker. If you spend any time with me in a game design class, you quickly realize I long ago gave way to listening to my subconscious. This often leads to something inane like “Hamlet with zombies” or out of scope like a an elaborate 3D world to learn kanji, where the player gains different powers and items through using and remembering kanji.
And sometimes, instead, it goes something like it did last semester.
-What if I come up with a game about sleep?
-Ooo, I could center it around Greek mythology.
-Should it be about dreams … no, how about sleep deprivation.
It does wind up as quite the conversation. Sadly, this is why people also hear me think out loud. I often have so many ideas floating around while brainstorming that if I don't voice single ideas, they get lost in the shuffle. If you've ever watched Pinky and the Brain this leads to some Pinky moments. Sorry, Missing Link.
This whole chapter just reminds me of why I love idea generation. I love brainstorming. I like writing and drawing myriad ideas to arrive at something interesting or a solution to a problem. I like to go to bars, sit with a beer, and work (and then watch people apologize to me for being loud at a bar) which is more like play. Or I walk. I carry my sketchbook everywhere. When inspiration strikes in the car I roll it on repeat until I can stop or I get where I am going—then I write/draw it. I joke. I say the ludicrous—it lightens the mood and somewhere under the silly might be something useful. I use adjectives, visualize, manipulate, piggyback. I look outside my window, watch kids play, play with kids. You notice, kids are really good at coming up with ideas. They are very good at listening to their
subconscious.
“I'm a dog, woof-woof. Now I'm a dog that can fly. I'm going to do flips and lick your face.”
Its a good time. Kids know it. I try not to forget it. Ideas are fantastic. I probably should give myself time to brainstorm once a week, no strings attached, just generate.
Then somewhere down the road, maybe one will get a theme and grow. But the rest is just good fun.
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