Author: gxpst664

1. I love a puzzle game and like high stakes competition games so this was something I really enjoyed, the learning curve compared to the time given seems difficult to overcome. Especially for people who have never used VR and have to get used to the mechanics, and it seems like having time to familiarize yourself with the different modules and puzzles would help immensely for this game.
2. You are trying to keep yourself from exploding, so there is a countdown timer which is a fairly effective motivator for the right people, and there are also additional markers, like flashing red lights in the room, or strikes being counted on the bomb itself.
3. I don’t know if it’s necessarily meant to be persuasive towards anything in particular. It feels more like an instructional, collaborative, team-building kind of game rather than persuasive. A game meant to test how you perform under pressure and take directions from others.
4. To keep calm under pressure, and maybe make you more of aware of how you interact with others in a team setting, or how you react when taking directions from someone else. I haven’t really done a lot of VR gaming so a lot of the mechanics kind of stood out for me. It was a learning curve to figure out how to interact with the graphics themselves and then the objects inside the game, learning how to pick the bomb up and move it around, and then how to interact with the different modules.
5. I was excited about the gameplay because I like games like that and puzzles, I wasn’t like tense or as stressed about the time limit as maybe the designers would want you to be, but I definitely still felt a sense of wanting to get the challenge done in time. I think I actually felt the most empathy for the people who had to give the instructions that seemed like the most stressful job.
6. It doesn’t feel much like an activist game to me.
7. Try not to blow up.
   Be quick. Time is running out.
   5,4,3,2,1.
   
   
   5 game simulation ideas.
   -Some sort of restaurant industry simulation, where you get to experience either being in the kitchen or a server, and get to deal with timed pressure scenarios, chaotic and dangerous surroundings, maybe intense authority figures, and a range of customers experiences that simulate real-life scenarios.
   
   -A media literacy simulation where you are in charge of running a social media page, or like entertainment/news site. You are given options for things to post that could be light-hearted, humorous, feel good, real news, fake news, propaganda, or ads. So you can choose a specific vibe to curate on your site, or you could branch out and post a variety of things. But every time you post you get feedback, ratings, and an influence score from “viewers”. So it would track engagement, fact checks, and your growth.
   
   -A game that highlights sensory issues with neurodivergence Players complete simple tasks but some players receive overwhelming instructions, some get conflicting rule, some can’t speak, or some must follow very rigid constraints. There could also be obstacles like amplified ambient sounds and noise, lights flicker, or NPC speech overlaps.
   
   – A game that highlights how people of different genders, races, disabilities experience public spaces. Switch between perspectives within a populated city area during the day or maybe navigating city streets at night.
   
   – A simulation that portrays either how certain people with privilege or influence can affect things. Or maybe its about the power of speaking out but when words are spoken certain avatars experience their words. Words expand into architecture, building bridges and pathways to move you forward and for other avatars words dissolve mid-air, echo but don’t land, build things much slower, or unstable architecture, make certain obstacles appear.
8. Fragment into static.
   

Painstation:

It was fun to watch people play this game since I didn’t have to participate in it, but I don’t think it’s a game I would actually want to play myself.

It seems like a pretty easy game to learn and grasp.

The most frustrating aspect seems like it would be getting shocked or burned.

I feel like I would need a strap to hold my hand down on the machine otherwise I would just continuously pick my hand up.

No I don’t think i would play this game.

The game setup is to stand on opposing sides and place your hands on a marked area. You then play a game of Pong against your opponent and any time you miss the ball there is pain administered.

The competitive aspects are to play pong and win against your opponent and hopefully not receive the most amount of pain. Or maybe for some people the competitive aspect is to survive the most amount of pain before bowing out.

The game’s metaphor seems to be to experience the physical pain of losing combined with like a style of pain reinforcement for repeated losing. The clear standout mechanic is the fact that it is putting its players in physical pain while playing.

I thought it was Pong.
But it’s actually pain.
Ouch. Ouch. That’s hurting.

Townscaper:

Yes it was fun, I could play it for hours.

You could interact with colors, the water, and other buildings once you have them.

It doesn’t take that long to learn, the only real mechanic is clicking.

The most frustrating aspect was figuring out how to undo something.

My favorite aspect of the game were the colors and sounds.

I kind of wish that people and more animals would pop up once you build up enough of the city and they would just wander around and make other calming noises.

I would add the people and animals if I had a magic wand.

Yes I would definitely play it again,

I don’t really feel like there is a 3 act structure for this game since there is not real conflict or resolutions for it. And There aren’t any collaborative or competitive aspects for it either. It’s just a calm, chill, time-passing game.

As a metaphor it feels very much like a zen garden or like a limited virtual LEGO set but there is no real deeper metaphor or something that it’s trying to bring awareness too, that I’ve found.

There is nothing here

Oh look! I’ve built a small town.

It’s no good. Start Over.

Calvinball

Calvinball was fun, but very low energy for what I feel like Calvinball is meant to be.

Player interactions included throwing a ball around and making new rules for the game.

It’s easy to learn but since new rules are always being added and the game is always changing, it is a continuous learning process and can be a lot to juggle while trying to keep the rules in mind.

The most frustrating aspect was trying to come up with new rules on the fly when you got the ball. My favorite aspect was hearing other people’s rules.

The nice thing about Calvinball is that if there is something you want to do you can just implement it as a rule or just do it because the only rule of Calvinball is that it can’t be played the same way twice.

Yeah I would play Calvinball again

The setup is to create yourself some rules for the start of Calvinball, the confrontation is the constant reinvention or competing rules and gameplay, and the resolution would be when the game ends through some ridiculous rule, point system, or players lose interest.

I think the collaborative and competitive aspects are essentially the rule making because you have to make rules up as a whole in order to establish the game but you can make a competitive rule that gives you an advantage over other players. If you have more than 2 players you could have collaborative aspects where multiple people team up with the rules they create to form an alliance to win.

I think the game as a metaphor wants to be a commentary on creative freedom and a rejection of traditional, arbitrary, rigid rules for how people want you to live your life.

Differs every time.

How can I make myself win?

Is that a tiger?

The McDonalds Game

I kind of love like a real world involved game scenario where you have multiple different aspects to keep track of in order to succeed, so in theory it is fun in that aspect because I like trying to run a fake successful business, but it’s also just so fast paced and chaotic and I was struggling with some of the game mechanics working well which made the game more frustrating for me.
The motivating factor that gets me to keep playing is kind of the need to make a successful business and try to keep the customers happy, while still engaging and learning about all the unethical practices that these kinds of large corporations engage in.
I feel like the game is pretty good at being persuasive, the little popups that happen that frame why people are unhappy or protesting your business are educational in a satirical way and give you a lot of things to think about the way the world works.

The games metaphor is to draw attention to the unethical and destructive nature of large fast food corporations. The game mechanics that standout to me are the options to like bribe local politicians or advertise to certain groups that are more easily persuadable than others, or the ability to feed or not feed diseased cows to other cows, or customers.

Let’s be ethical!

Oops someone ate a sick cow.

Now my monies gone.

Intergroup Monopoly

It was kind of fun because of the people you play with but since Monopoly is already kind of tedious and contentious game it was a lot less fun than a normal game of monopoly and it makes the game run a lot shorter than normal.

I think there are only really motivating factors for the people who get to play as the middle class white man or the 1% because you have such a bigger advantage over everyone else. It’s not very motivating to play as the female or minority character unless you enter a state of determination to try to beat the odds.

I think it’s pretty persuasive with the message it’s trying to get across. The point of the amended rules is to point out the issues with wealth inequality and how certain groups of people in life have an easier time getting ahead because of certain advantages they are born with or given throughout life.

The game mechanics that standout out are the amended rules for players 2, 3, and 4. having to pay an extra 50% for properties or only being able to buy properties under $100 which is only like 2 spaces on the board. Only being able to move half your roll for a female, or going directly to jail as a minority if you roll higher than a 7 or if you can’t afford to pay another player or the board.

It’s Monopoly

Oh no wait! This is too real.

Now my monies gone.