Ames' syllabi

I don’t think there was anything in this reading that wasn’t obvious. You can have all these ideas of what a game should look like and play like and be received like, but you really won’t know any of that until you make the game and hand it off to someone who didn’t make the game. Even if you’re not consciously influencing what’s happening in your gameplay – you’re still influencing it to fit your idea of your game. Passing it off to other people allows them to not only play your game in ways you didn’t account for. Especially when you play the game for the sake of testing it, people who know to look for errors or ways to expand the game can offer insight and critiques that you couldn’t think of yourself.

I think I could be an awesome streamer, and playing this game only supported that belief. I speak a language that everyone speaks. As mayor of that island town, putting beer before box and fish was a decision that needed to be made. But nobody else had the gumption to sign those papers.

But seriously, as someone who thinks there’s more games out there than our species was ever designed to have, this game didn’t do anything to make me think otherwise.

Pepsi Man

This game is notorious, I think I first found out about this game in middle school. It has a cult meme following, especially since the song is unironically kind of catchy. I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that these memes actually improved my perception of the brand. Although this was likely not the intended avenue for this to happen, it is interesting that it had the intended result. They used the wrong formula and got to the right solution.

Sneak King

I never owned an Xbox but if I did and was aware of this promotional game, I probably would have gotten it. As a kid, I bought lots of Cheerios cereal because there were pamphlets with chapters of the second Spiderwick Chronicles book in the boxes. I eventually got all of them and compiled them into the complete book which I thought was pretty cool. When Sneak King came out, I was six years old and my access to games was limited to pretty much whatever I could find for cheap. I would have definitely been in the target market for this advergame.

Chex Quest

This reminded me of all of the different versions of Doom that I have played. In middle school, I would play it on a calculator. This is all to say that I would play whatever I could get my hands on and Chex Quest looks to be far from the worst advergame that one could pick out.

M&M Kart Racing

This is not one that I have ever played, and from the looks of it, no one should ever play it. In hindsight, I don’t think that I ever had any truly bad advergames although I did have some games that were just rip offs of other more successful games that had characters from TV put into them.

America’s Army

Every FPS game I’ve ever known has to be compared to the gold standard: Counter Strike. CS was released several years before AA and in my opinion outclasses it mechanically and in terms of strategy. As a game, I see no reason that someone would choose AA. I don’t doubt that CS also had an effect on recruitment amongst young men when it was released and even today.

Vote!!!

This is a silly looking game, but amongst the ones that we discussed, probably the most compelling in terms of persuading me in any given direction. The creators clearly understood how to appeal to a young demographic.

Darfur is Dying

This is just a smart choice for something to pick as a game for change. Every time that I watch Hotel Rwanda, I feel empathy for everyone in that situation, and wish that I could help. It makes a lot of sense to develop this global issue into an interactive thing.

The McDonalds Game

I think this is pretty clever, although I also feel that I’m pretty aware of all of the ethical issues surrounding eating at McDonalds and I don’t think that this game swayed me in any way. I really just didn’t want to read the text parts of this game. I figured most of it out through trial and error and pretty quickly got a Game Over. I played a few more times and still didn’t bother to play “right”. My assumption was that it probably eventually ends in a loss since it is showing an unsustainable business growth model.

Monopoly

I had heard on John Green’s podcast about the original version of the Monopoly rules and the ironic history of the IP being stolen by a corporation and the rules changed to what they are today. The rules variant that we played in class was even less fun than the retail version of the game. I got the gist of what it was going for just by skimming the rules sheet and really didn’t feel the need to play much of it. One thing that happened with our playthrough was that since it was clear before we started who the winner would be, we each had different expectations of the play.

Dr. Jones brought up Full Spectrum Warrior in one of his classes last year. I’m a guy that tries to find everything funny. It makes everything easier. Hard to find something funny about any of those military training games.

I’ve never been one for shooting or gore in games or movies. It kind of makes my stomach sink. And it’s one thing when it’s sweaty teenagers digitally shooting their friends from up the street. It’s another entirely when games using basically the same engine are used to train our nation’s military. 

I know there’s more to it than that, and that they’re an effective teaching tool and save on resources and time. But knowing the people I know who play those kind of games and have been through that kind of training – killing is fun for them. That doesn’t make them all ax murderers and threats to society as a whole, but the value they assign to a human life that isn’t their own does unnerve me.

Factorio looks terrifying. It looks like one of those Minecraft modpacks where they add oil and nuclear reactors. My weirder sister loved those. So, naturally, I did not love those. I’m pretty sure I have seen seventeen games that look exactly like Outer Wilds. I remember a bunch of people played the one a few years ago. You work in a fire tower and your brother dies. Or something like that. Gris looks like the scene in Blade Runner 2049.

I remember when this game was like the game. I’m not someone who watches other adults play video games on the internet, but there’s a lot of people who are. And those people loved watching other adults play this game. I’d see it on the YouTube front page all the time. All of this to say, I had no clue the game was about black people. I thought it was just about robots. It’s nice to know that so many people took to a game about addressing inequality and prejudice in our world. I wish everyone had to play that black robot game.

I don’t see the point of this. If I want to learn about ancient Egypt, I’m not looking to Assassin’s Creed. I’m probably going to – I don’t know – pick up a book.

I love Monopoly. Money is so cool. I usually try to keep to myself in Monopoly games. I don’t think I have ever made it to the hotel stage of property ownership. I just like having the cash. In this class, I had to play with the woman rules, which prevented me from accumulating the cash surplus I’m accustomed to.

Painstation

This is not what I imagined when it was first brought up but it honestly makes a lot of sense. What better way to establish stakes for the game than putting your body on the line. People generally care about winning trivial games just for bragging rights so having a negative consequence for losing is a natural next step to engage people. You can be sure that anyone participating with this game is giving it their full attention.

Getting Over It

I have seen many people play this although I never ventured to try it myself (I’ve only played Mario Maker levels that are derivative of it). My understanding is that the controls are frustrating to pick up and it is easy to lose all of your progress and go back to the start. Because it is so difficult and annoying to progress in this game, the developer has made a final reward that is prefaced with a warning saying that people who are streaming shouldn’t show and spoil it for people who didn’t earn it themselves. Although I’m sure it is possible to find what is behind this wall somewhere online, I have always held off in case I do eventually decide to play it. I also remember that there is an unlockable golden pot for beating the game 100 times which sounds like an impossible amount considering that most people probably never even beat the game once. It is worth noting, however, that this game, like many others, quickly developed a community of people who like to speedrun it. This is especially impressive given the difficulty of the controls but obviously some people find it rewarding to play.

Calvin Ball

I grew up reading Calvin and Hobbes but I had never even considered trying to play it in real life before. I think that we as a class struggled with this because we are used to having clear rules set out for us. People had a natural inclination to want to fall into patterns of repeating what they were doing. It is admittedly difficult to rewire your brain to not do something twice.

Cow Clicker

This struck me as being pretty clever. The twist of irony that people came to play the parody game of the whole clicker genre is such a good narrative. I also think that the art for some of the cows is pretty creative. I won’t say that I am above playing a clicker game ever in my life, although I do think that after you’ve been invested in one, it is hard to want to play another. If Cow Clicker was the first one that I had ever stumbled upon, I can definitely see the appeal.

The Graveyard

I was previously familiar with this game because it had some popularity with some content creators when I was probably in high school. I think that by virtue of being something sold on Steam and that has semi realistic graphics, people have certain expectations of what the experience will be like. This made for some good gag videos of people who would go into the experience blind and be surprised that it is pretty limited in terms of what you can do in the game world. I do think that this still falls into the category of games because there is still player input and I honestly don’t think I knew that there were different endings that you could achieve.

Townscaper

I am surprised that I had never heard of this one before because it seems right up my alley. The animation of adding new things and having the existing structure adapt to it is so satisfying to watch. I could easily see myself spending a long time playing with this even though there isn’t a specific goal that you have to work towards.

No computer game could ever infuriate me. I’m too advanced to do that. But seeing everyone in the class rake it in on that McDonald’s game – while I could barely keep five cows alive – almost got me there. I think everyone above the age of 6 knows there has to be something sinister going on behind the scenes at McDon’s for their fries to be so delightful, so this game didn’t really open my eyes to anything. The boardroom and corporate sectors were a nice touch, though. In terms of showing corruption. Imperialism and livestock mutilation might not be enough for some people.

the real challenge with this project has been making a lite version of a lot of the mechanics for Soul so the game can progress without a DM present and without getting too interrupted. I have managed to simplify enemies, build a character, and make simple powers that create interesting challenge and mechanics without distracting from the story, which is about grief. It goes through the various stages and offers the player a choice at the end: to keep going or give up. I think that the various simplifications to systems have helped to make it an engaging story with a simple and effective message.

This playtest was mostly about making changes to the story, and finding a way to present a meaningful message about grief and mental health without coming across as oppressive or overbearing. I found players resonated much more with this than a strictly 100% realistic depiction of mental illness.

10/10 Hottest Podcast of the Year.