Dumb Ways To Die: I actually knew about the song ad well before the game. For me, this was a lighthearted reminder that focused more on the ways to die than the message of ‘be safe around trains’. I think it lost a lot of the seriousness of the message when it was turned into an app game. However, the song is damn catchy, so I guess if the point of the game is to remind you of the song (and the PSA at the end), then this game succeeds in doing that. Fun point to note – I had downloaded, played, and deleted this game before this class! I think I had deleted it because I got frustrated that I wasn’t very good at some of the tasks. Second time around downloading this game and I found that problem still existed.
Fake It To Make It: This was a fun little political game about the dangers of fake news. It’s literally so easy to spread fake news! I think this did a good job of showing just how easy it is to spread misinformation, and how many people will just willingly believe it without doing any further research or reading. Mechanic wise, I could see myself probably getting into if I played for more than five minutes. The different objectives and “not all terrible news all the time” would keep it interesting enough, at least until I got tired of the same fake news stories, to merit this game another play.
Cards Against Calamity: From the title, I would have thought this game would be closer to the hilarious fill-in-the-blank Cards Against Humanity. However, it was a fun resource collecting game to raise awareness bout marine life, town economics, and ecological disasters (caused almost entirely from corporate greed). This game was very difficult to win, even on easy mode. However, it did make it quite clear that each action has its consequences, whether you meant them to happen or not.
Cast Your Vote: My god this one was boring. It definitely seems like something they would make you try to play in a civics class. The pace, the debates, the everything was just so dull and slow. There are many other and better ways to learn how to be an informed voter and how to vote. This ain’t it, chief.