Critical Play: Radical Game Design
Abstract
An examination of subversive games—games designed for political, aesthetic, and social critique.
For many players, games are entertainment, diversion, relaxation, fantasy. But what if certain games were something more than this, providing not only outlets for entertainment but a means for creative expression, instruments for conceptual thinking, or tools for social change? In Critical Play, artist and game designer Mary Flanagan examines alternative games—games that challenge the accepted norms embedded within the gaming industry—and argues that games designed by artists and activists are reshaping everyday game culture.
Flanagan provides a lively historical context for critical play through twentieth-century art movements, connecting subversive game design to subversive art: her examples of “playing house” include Dadaist puppet shows and The Sims. She looks at artists' alternative computer-based games and explores games for change, considering the way activist concerns—including worldwide poverty and AIDS—can be incorporated into game design.
Arguing that this kind of conscious practice—which now constitutes the avant-garde of the computer game medium—can inspire new working methods for designers, Flanagan offers a model for designing that will encourage the subversion of popular gaming tropes through new styles of game making, and proposes a theory of alternate game design that focuses on the reworking of contemporary popular game practices.
... Games do not merely exist for the purposes of entertainment. While fundamental to what makes the medium so popularso much so that "finding the fun" is a common design principle (Friedhoff 2016;Koster 2013)games can also exist for simulation and training (Michael and Chen 2005), interactive art (Flanagan 2009), or act as catalysts for player reflection . ...
... These frameworks often encourage similar or tangential design approaches but have a variety of different names. These frameworks include critical game design (Flanagan 2009;Grace 2010), empathy game design (Belman and Flanagan 2010;Sampat 2017), ethical game design Sicart 2011), anti-oppressive game design (Gunraj et al. 2011), emotional game design (Isbister 2016) and radical game design (Harrer 2019). ...
... These inclusive experiences hope to encourage prosocial reflective practice in players which may lead to positive psychological change. Flanagan et al.'s (2005) Values at Play framework helped inform the notions of critical games and critical play, which aim to challenge the status quo of the games medium (Flanagan 2009). This approach allows games to provide unique experiences because of the values embedded during the design process. ...
The interactivity present in games makes them useful vehicles for the exploration of various concepts outside of “finding the fun”. Empathy games – games that are developed to educate and encourage empathetic responses from players about a scenario – are one such example. However, the notion of empathy game design overlaps with other tangential design theories like emotional game design, radical game design, and critical game design. These theories often overlap but are difficult to discover because of their different naming conventions. To assist designers, this paper discusses design principles from these and other similar game design frameworks. Using these, it presents a consolidated set of design principles and considerations that can be applied to game projects. These principles are presented to inspire future design work to explore lesser-known experiences, in the hopes of being more inclusive of, and more meaningful to, a diverse player base.
... To answer our research question, we first reviewed literature on the critical histories and spatialities of play. Then, we thought with concepts of critical play (Flanagan 2013;Flanagan & Nissenbaum 2016), restorying (Thomas 2020;Thomas & Stornaiuolo 2016), and transnational childhoods (Orellana 2009) to make sense of our data. Using a combination of inductive (Strauss and Corbin 1990) and deductive (Azungah 2018) coding methods, we analyzed moments of Roblox play when the participants interacted with Brookhaven's digital playspace in ways that transcended and resisted the spatial constraints of the game. ...
... Artifacts of miniature domestic spaces have been found in Egyptian burial sites dating back to 2000 B.C., but the earliest written history of dollhouses as popular playthings began in late seventeenthcentury Europe (Armstrong 1996). From cupboard-sized dioramas to paper-based domestic scenes, dollhouses were popular among young girls and adult women, alike (Flanagan 2013). Armstrong (1996) describes these early dollhouses as 'ludic spaces' in which women and girls performed and apprenticed each other into Victorian social norms. ...
... The following three concepts oriented our analysis of our participants' play on Roblox: Flanagan's (2013) three typologies of critical play, Thomas and Stornaiuolo's (2016) restorying framework, and transnational childhoods (Orellana 2009). Flanagan's (2013) work helped us code and categorize our participants' forms of critical, subversive, and sustaining play. Thomas and Stornaiuolo's (2016) restorying framework helped us trace how children bent narrative elements of Roblox's game design to better represent -and story -their real and imagined lives. ...
This connective ethnographic case study highlights how three Brazilian immigrant children (ages 6-8) engaged in critical play on an online gaming platform called Roblox. Specifically, we examine how participants navigated and interacted in a Roblox minigame titled, Brookhaven. Brookhaven is a type of virtual domestic role-play in which players perform aspects of daily life with avatars in a digital town. Thinking with theories of critical play, restorying, and transnational childhoods, this paper considers how participants leveraged sociotechnical skills with their transnational experiences and imaginaries to build community in a mononational and ideologically precarious playspace. Our findings demonstrate how the children engaged in glitching and (re)placement practices to forward justice-oriented play across digital and analog contexts. Implications for this study advocate for assets-based explorations of young users' play-based design practices that affirm and value their existence.
... Key to understanding how this can be approached is the notion that the ideologies, politics, and values of creators influence their game designs Fleischmann, 2013;Winner, 1980). Flanagan (2009) integrates this into their understanding of "critical play, " which suggests that games can be designed or played in ways that express unconventional mechanics, contexts, and points of view. This can be done through, for example, "unplaying"-the enacting of culturally taboo actions during play as a subversion of the spirit of the game; "redressing"-the altering of game elements to change the traditional play experience; and "rewriting"-where redressing and unplaying merge to create a new context for the game itself. ...
... While autobiographical games can be considered a type of serious game, this distinction may not represent the depths of their design implications. Rather than simply serving as educational tools (Abt, 1970), personal games align more closely with notions of critical play and design (Flanagan, 2009), suggesting that "art games" may be a more fitting description. This Frontiers in Computer Science 10 frontiersin.org ...
... Adjusting timelines to allow for year-long engagement can provide similar support and can additionally be augmented with, for example, workshops on development techniques, emotional resilience, and ethical considerations within game design. Finally, redefining such assessments as "art game design, " alongside scaffolding the curriculum with explorations of, critical play, or values-conscious design (Flanagan, 2009;Flanagan and Nissenbaum, 2014;Rusch, 2017) may better accommodate a range of students. Offering alternate themes or framing "serious" components as optional can additionally allow students to retain autonomy of their learning experience. ...
Learning through gameplay is being increasingly adopted by educators, who integrate games into academic curricula to address complex subjects. “Existential” game design is recognised as a practice for personal growth, self-reflection, and therapy, though it has been underexplored in educational contexts. The research thus describes the creation and deployment of two game design assessments for a private higher-education institution in South Africa that allowed undergraduate students to explore various complex topics. The research utilized an action research approach with a pre-test/post-test design for data collection, with results being explored using sentiment-based and thematic analysis. The findings reveal mixed responses from participants which highlighted the usefulness of the exercise but noted that the courses’ focus on technical quality and a lack of adequate preparation hindered the experience, with adequate mentoring and developer support being suggested to improve it. Arts-based approaches to such educational interventions, with a focus on “deep” games, critical play, and values-conscious design throughout the curriculum, are discussed as a potential solution. While game design remains a useful educational tool for engaging with complex societal issues, educators must increasingly ensure they prepare undergraduate students adequately for such creative exercises.
... the continuum of experience (Dewey, 1938) to offer an opportunity for a new playculture that can alter the dynamics of social space (Flanagan, 2009). This form of play is meant to be disruptive and even subversive, turning upside down, uprooting, and overthrowing the rule of systems and unjust laws. ...
... Joy can be disruptive and even subversive, turning upside down, uprooting, and overthrowing the rule of systems and unjust laws. This joyful disruption is a creative act that shifts the way of a particular logic or paradigm, disturbing our sense of comfort (Flanagan, 2009). This joyful and playful disruption encourages imaginative freedom to experiment with alternative solutions, while at the same time offering a realistic set of constraints on less practical responses to problems. ...
... Action LOs asked students to describe what they were designing, or how they imagined it functioning, and their efficacy working as a team coordinating a community (school-wide) experience. Activities such as Super Powers Trading, Rainbow River, and Star Power provided a dynamic playculture (Flanagan, 2009) that allowed students to critically engage their interpersonal and intercultural dynamics. Facilitated processes such as The Framework for Analysis and The Framework for Actions allowed students the space to control course content, analyze the issues they felt most important, and design solutions that inspired them. ...
Two games were designed as part of an autoethnographic, teacher research study conducted from 2013-2014 on the implementation of play-, game-, and design-based teaching and assessment. The study was conducted at an urban, independent, K-12 day school with fewer than 500 students, respectively, and supported as part of a certification program in Serious Game Design & Research. La Isla de Monstruos was collaboratively designed with students as part of a seventh-grade Spanish 2 & 3 language and culture course using a culture circle design method. Students collaboratively designed a month of gamified and design-based assessment reviewing the material covered during the previous semester. Escapar Tenochtitlan is a six-week anthropology roleplay and language learning game designed by eighth-grade Spanish 2 & 3 students through a culture circle design method, grounded in ethnohistorical, archaeological, and anthropological data of 60 Pre-Columbian sites.
... The vignette can be used as a way for authors to create 'critical play,' in which they "question an aspect of a play scenario's function that might otherwise be considered a given or necessary" (Flanagan 2009). Players coming to a Twine game may assume that the game will behave like a CYOA, and thus assume that the game 1) will posit them as the hero of an adventure story (as many AAA and CYOA works do), and 2) will give them significant agency (or at least meaningful choice) and freedom within a sprawling game world. ...
... Further, the simplistic logic and lack of choice underlying the story helps express the protagonist's inability to change the situation. Twine's lack of affordances may lead to vignettes that create space to have "commentary on social experiences [...] that traditional gaming either avoids or unabashedly marks with stereotypes" (Flanagan 2009). ...
As mainstream games require increasingly larger technical teams and more complex software, there has been a move in the opposite direction: that is, the development of game-making tools that “are being designed with people who aren't professional coders in mind.” While Twine is not the only platform designed to facilitate the creation of interactive stories, it has evolved into the primary hotbed for games exploring personal experiences, especially those dealing with issues like marginalization, queerness, and discrimination. This paper examines Twine from a platform studies perspective to understand how it supports and facilitates more experimental works. The platform's development history, documentation, UI, method of content generation, and distribution model combine to create a tool that facilitates these kinds of works. Twine’s reference materials (oriented not toward code and problem solving, but to affirmation of the individual experience as the basis of a game), user interface (analogous to common brainstorming/writing techniques), orientation toward vignette (with the genre's subversive potential) and open distribution model (free to download, free to share, and exported as HTML) make the platform a uniquely-accessible tool for creating highly personal games. Analyzing Twine in this way allows game researchers to understand the importance of Twine’s design to the creation of such works, in turn illustrating factors that platform developers may use to guide future software.
... Revisitando jogos digitais produzidos por museus de arte| Ana Beatriz 180 ontológica, observou-se que o museu trabalha a partir do entendimento de que a interpretação de uma obra de arte é Jogo (Gadamer, 1996). A consistência dos processos de game design também foi considerada (Schell, 2008), ponderando se a mecânica desenhada para os jogos é pensada para além da funcionalidade imediata, mas em seu valor estético (Sicart, 2023), e/ou como design de jogos críticos (Flanagan, 2009) ...
... No processo de revisita, observou-se se os jogos disponíveis têm design coerente com o jogo da interpretação da obra de arte (Gadamer, 1996), exploram a dimensão estética de suas mecânicas de jogo (Sicart, 2023) e funcionam como jogos críticos (Flanagan, 2009) sobre valores e hábitos museais. Quanto ao modo como os jogos são concebidos e desenvolvidos, observou-se que o processo é coerente com a perspectiva de educação museal que mobiliza visitantes atuantes (Hooper-Greenhill, 1998 (Bahia, 2008, p. 198-199 (Bahia, 2008, p. 197-198) ...
O artigo examina museus de arte que produzem jogos digitais a partir de obras do seu acervo. Discute os motivos e caminhos pelos quais certos museus adentraram o universo dos jogos digitais, há cerca de vinte anos, e se seguem interessados nesse tipo de mídia interativa. Para tanto, foi realizada uma pesquisa que: primeiramente, retomou o mapeamento de jogos online de museus de arte, feito em 2004-2005; depois, revisitou esses sites em 2024 para identificar quais jogos permanecem ativos e se há novos jogos produzidos por essas instituições. Utilizando uma abordagem qualitativa, considerou-se especificidades do contexto museal, do conhecimento artístico e do game design desses jogos. O artigo conclui sumarizando os dados coletados e discutindo as mudanças de interesse desses museus de arte por jogos digitais.
... High-profile titles specifically aimed at the problematics of sexuality and gender are scarce and rarely used in formal education. While some universities have begun incorporating gender studies into game design programmes, there is still a need for structured initiatives that bridge the gap between academic research and industry practices (Flanagan, 2009). Educational games tackling LGBTQ+ related topics are primarily made by independent developers. ...
Prior feminist studies in the field of digital education focus primarily on the need to retrain teachers and the need to attract women to programming. Digital games have been a part of both formal and informal education processes for several decades. Despite their longstanding prominence, the potential for gender education has not yet been fully explored. The paper focuses on specific games and uses content analysis to focus on the interactive, narrative and audiovisual components of digital games and on individual motifs or mechanics that are associated with appropriate feminist themes. The main aim of the article is to showcase the abilities and limits of educational digital games created by independent developers to teach players within the gaming community about topics of sexuality. The text also shows how individual games can help in the field of gender education. At the same time, by examining the game market, we estimate what possibilities independent educational games have for reaching audiences in gaming culture.
... Key conclusions include: The prevalence of aggression, consumption-driven mechanics, and microtransactions necessitates reevaluating ethical responsibilities in game design (Verbeek, 2006). Addressing the interplay between individualism and social collaboration is crucial for creating inclusive gaming experiences (Flanagan, 2009). Games hold significant promise as tools for fostering strategic thinking and ethical reflection, as Sicart (2013a) advocates. ...
Although digital games are used for entertainment and educational purposes, the characters and designs often influence players' behaviors and thought processes. The concept of the pedagogical agent in digital games allows for an analysis of game characters' roles. However, in some games, these characters may create adverse effects by promoting harmful behaviors rather than fostering positive learning experiences. The instrumental rationality approach seeks to explain this situation and suggests that moral values or ethical concerns can be disregarded when pursuing success. This research aims to examine the characteristics of the characters in popular ten games (Fortnite, Brawl Stars, Call of Duty (CoD), Clash of Clans, League of Legends (LoL), Minecraft, Overwatch, PUBG (Player Unknown's Battlegrounds), Roblox, Valorant) from the perspective of instrumental rationality and to analyze how these characters function as pedagogical agents. The study evaluates whether the values presented to players by these in-game characters lack ethical and moral considerations. The research was conducted as a qualitative document analysis study. In this context, the characteristics of the characters displayed on the official games' websites were analyzed using the content analysis method. The study assessed how these characters were structured as pedagogical agents and their potential adverse effects on players. By employing content analysis, the focus was placed on how the characters' features were reflected to players and whether these features pursued an educational purpose. The study's findings reveal that the characters in these games function as pedagogical agents, but these agents negatively affect players. The instrumental rationality perspective exposes how these characters are designed solely to achieve goals while disregarding factors such as ethics and values. This study demonstrates that the characters in digital games serve entertainment purposes and play a more profound educational role, which can have negative impacts.
... Key conclusions include: The prevalence of aggression, consumption-driven mechanics, and microtransactions necessitates reevaluating ethical responsibilities in game design (Verbeek, 2006). Addressing the interplay between individualism and social collaboration is crucial for creating inclusive gaming experiences (Flanagan, 2009). Games hold significant promise as tools for fostering strategic thinking and ethical reflection, as Sicart (2013a) advocates. ...
... Third, we wanted to foster critical thinking through critical play [4] and by creating a system that would stir debate and would be open to interpretation [5]. The abstract nature of the board allows players to focus on the phenomenon of disease spread, not on the surrounding debates about the issue. ...
The POX: Save the People game was developed to address some of the core concepts included in curricular frameworks for Science Literacy in the USA. This paper documents our design research, design approach, and prototyping process.
... Starting in 2011, in our lab's "Transforming STEM for Women and Girls: Reworking Stereotypes & Bias" research project (hereafter referred to as the "BIAS project"), we aimed to design and study game-based interventions to reduce biases and encourage broader participation for women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) domains. Because our prior work has revealed that games themselves are powerful sites for enculturation (Flanagan 2009), and that values are often embedded into games through a variety of game elements (Flanagan and Nissenbaum 2015), we approached our work with biases and stereotypes thoughtfully and carefully, with a priority on evidencebased design. Our team developed, tested, researched, and produced a suite of games, both digital and non-digital, that would be accessible and implementable in a variety of school, after-school, and home settings. ...
Iterative game design approaches have proven effective in creating persuasive games, but these approaches inevitably lead to as many abandoned designs as ones that are pursued to completion. This paper serves as a reflective and instructive post mortem for the unpublished non-digital game prototypes developed for our team’s “Transforming STEM for Women and Girls: Reworking Stereotypes & Bias” (BIAS) research project. We outline three abandoned designs and explain why they were ultimately not pursued, focusing on the challenges of balancing enjoyability, feasibility of production, and impact. We discuss design strategies, including: masking games’ persuasive intentions, prioritizing prototypes with their efficacy-to-cost ratio in mind, and designing for fun first. This discussion offers insights into the design of both non-digital and digital “games for impact” that allow designers and researchers alike to learn from these promising but problematic prototypes.
... Like McCall's work with historical simulation games, using historical narrative games requires the players to critique and analyze the systems of the game, but in this case it is less the systems represented in the core mechanics but rather the cultural systems and symbolism used by the game authors in representing the historical world the players play within. The role of the teacher and facilitator is just as important as well, to help the students engage with the game in a critical mode (Flanagan 2009) which can require players to play sub-optimally or against the game designer's intentions, a type of play that is common with players of simulation games but can be less so with inexperienced players of narrative games. Examples of this critical play include playing Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios 2011) in a 'pacifist' mode, completing the game without killing any enemy within the game (Totilo 2011), or playing Skyrim or Witcher III: Wild Hunt (CD Projekt Red 2015) as an archaeologist, examining objects within the world and ascertaining their use or purpose based on known understandings of similar peoples (Archaeosoup Productions, n.d.). ...
As part of an Arthur Vining Davis-funded project conducted by the MIT Education Arcade, the author designed a lesson plan for a Lynn, MA teacher’s 9th grade World History class, focused on the beginning of her World War 1 unit. This plan utilized a commercial, off- the-shelf game, The Last Express (Mechner 1997), originally developed and published for entertainment purposes. The lesson plan was developed to test the feasibility of using story- based narrative games with historical elements as a prelude to a critical writing exercise. The test was to see how students reacted to the game, both as a gameplay exercise and as a source of content, and whether students would be able make logical connections between the game and their other non-game classwork. This paper outlines the research that went into designing this lesson plan and identifies challenges educators might face bringing these games into their classrooms.
... Sicart 2009;Schrier and Gibson 2010;Zagal 2011). Flanagan (2009) also discusses how games can represent states of affairs as good or bad. Similarly, Bogost's work in procedural rhetoric argues that games can make moral claims when game-systems represent real-world systems; a favored example is the McDonald's Game, where players must maximize profits and take care of the environment but discover, eventually, that it's impossible (Bogost 2007). ...
Most game studies research on ethics and games examines the ways games encode, express, and encourage ethical reflection and ideas through their systems, mechanics, and representational elements. However, not much attention has been paid to the ethical aspects of games as/when they are played by more than one player. In this article we use literature from the philosophy of sports to discuss how competition can be framed as an ethical activity and how doing so allows us to examine commonly used value-laden terms such as ganking, spawncamping, and trash talking. We propose the idea of the ideal moral competitive game: a game in which the best moves or plays are coincidentally those that result in the best possible degree and type of challenge for my opponent. From this baseline we then articulate a preliminary ethics of play, centered on competition that can be productive for examining and understanding the ethics of inter-player interactions.
... Can games spur social structure? Games and play have long been studied by anthropologists for their ability to foster social ties, going back to the work of Brian Sutton-Smith in the early 20 th century, which demonstrated the development of community, group identity, and a sense of belonging (Flanagan 2009). Psychologists like Piaget have long argued that games have their own social contract, describing how youth quickly learn that the space of games is fundamentally about collective negotiation (in Salen and Zimmerman 2004, 489). ...
The rise of reality gaming introduces a new possibility: that games can directly shape real-world networks, even as they educate. Network relations and skills are associated with career growth, educational attainment and even civic participation. Using methods of network analysis, this paper investigates the game "Reality Ends Here" over two years. The semester-long game is designed for freshmen university students, and is deliberately kept underground, which is rare in education. The game fosters multimedia production by small student groups, with hundreds of team submissions created each semester. This paper seeks to advance the formative use of network analysis for games that address human capital in education. Findings confirm that a player’s network centrality correlates with their game score. Team formation was biased by gender and academic discipline, but appears within acceptable levels. Implications are discussed for how game performance can be tied to various network indicators.
... Running the gamut from games targeting cognitive biases that reduce the accuracy of judgment and decision making (e.g., the SIRIUS initiative of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity program: Dunbar et al. 2013) to ones intended to encourage behaviors that benefit society (such as recycling in the case of the mobile game Gaea: Centieiro, Romão, and Dias 2011) or the self (e.g., the reduction of substance abuse and HIV risk, which is the focus of the "Play2Prevent" program: Fiellin et al. 2014), this subset of "serious games" is united by their intention to transform mindsets and actions through the messages they model. Games themselves are powerful sites for enculturation (Flanagan 2009). A vast majority of serious games, however, share a common design philosophy: by and large, they present characters, scenarios, situations, and solutions in a direct, matter-of-fact fashion under the ostensibly logical (and well-intentioned) assumption that doing so will automatically encourage and enable players to internalize, and transfer, the game's modeled beliefs and behaviors to real-life contexts. ...
Persuasive games tackling serious issues in a literal, explicit fashion are far less likely to succeed in changing attitudes or behaviors than are games that take the more “stealthy” approach of embedding persuasive messages within a game’s content or context. The “Embedded Design” model, which we introduce here, offers novel, evidence-based strategies for including persuasive content in a game in a fashion that circumvents players’ psychological defenses, triggers a more receptive mindset for internalizing a game’s intended message, and does so without sacrificing players’ enjoyment or the game’s replayability. Such techniques promise to revolutionize the ways that game developers tackle serious issues in games. Three original “embedding” strategies are presented: (1) Intermixing: balancing “on-message” and “off-message” content to render the former less overt or threatening; (2) Obfuscating: using framing devices or genres that divert expectations or focus away from the game’s persuasive intent; and (3) Distancing: employing fiction and metaphor to increase the psychological gap between players’ identities and beliefs and the game’s characters and persuasive content.
... With the advent of digital maps and a simultaneous "ludification of culture" (Raessens 2006) all new kinds of playful mapping practices have emerged. Surely playing and mapping have a shared history that goes way beyond the digital turn (Perkins 2009;Flanagan 2009) yet playful mapping has entered a new era now that players are able to manipulate the appearance of maps in multiple ways and can constantly wipe out images of maps to create new ones whilst being on the move. Furthermore technological means of communication (satellites, WIFI, Bluetooth, GSM) enable a constant flow of communication of such transforming images. ...
In this paper I will examine how maps in location-based mobile games are used as surfaces on which players can inscribe their whereabouts and other local information while being on the move. I will look at three different location-based games to which maps are central as a playing surface: RunZombieRun, Paranormal Activity Sanctuary and Own This World. My main argument will be that such cartographical location-based games foreground the fluidity of mapping and emphasise the performative aspects of playing with maps. As such they are not representations used by players for consultation, but as Latourian mediators (Latour 1990, 1993, 2004) they produce new social spaces (Lefebvre 1991). It therefore does not suffice to conceive maps in such games as “mimetic interfaces” (Juul 2009). Instead they should be approached as what I will call navigational interfaces. To understand them as such I will combine perspectives from game-studies with understandings of maps as technological and spatial practices as developed in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Human Geography.
... Values in games and game design (Flanagan 2009;Flanagan and Nissenbaum 2014) are an established line of inquiry in game studies. The core premises of Flanagan and Nissenbaum are that "(1) there are common (not necessarily universal) values; (2) artefacts may embody ethical and political values; and (3) steps taken in design and development have the power to affect the nature of these values"(2014:11). ...
This paper presents and evaluates a plan for a 2-weeks teaching moment with a series of lectures and a seminar in a Game Design course on advanced level that teaches students to critically examine their design task as game designers. This means that this is a critical intervention that can be used to educate critical makers or reflexive professionals. The center piece of the course is an assignment that asks the students to create a design prototype that is highly problematic from moral and ethical perspectives that are discussed in the course literature and lectures. The paper explains in detail the setup of the lectures and seminars and shows the results of a first trial. Any game design education (and potentially even other digital making like IT or Information Systems) that aims at educating reflexive professionals or critical researchers should be able to adapt this teaching moment.
... Player engagement with WWTWU thus aligns with research suggesting games can be used for social good by challenging the norms of the medium (Flanagan 2009). Games often assist players in dealing with personal struggles (Lewis 2014), and sometimes also have therapeutic benefits (Colder Carras et al. 2018). ...
What We Take With Us is a series of interconnected wellbeing-focused pervasive games I created based on my experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. The game was played in three formats, or "playgrounds" - an online alternate reality game, a physical room-based game, and game-based workshops. The design of these formats is discussed, followed by an analytic autoethnography of my experiences deploying and running each format. These accounts are thematically analysed with reference to existing research to suggest challenges and opportunities for consideration when deploying such games. This includes targeting and community issues, struggles around the presentation of pervasive games and the labour involved in making them, the dissonance felt as both a designer and researcher on personally situated projects, and the issues deploying such games in a post-pandemic era. Notable opportunities are also discussed, including the use of social media algorithms for advertising, the effect of the lusory attitude on games research participation, and how success can be defined in such projects.
... When it comes to Game Studies more broadly, there is an important body of work which has troubled epistemological boundaries around the notions of 'game' and related practices, including studies on diverse makers (Shaw 2009), players (Chess et al. 2017), and representations . Such work has successfully problematised videogames' centres and their priorities by looking at its contested margins, critiquing Game -3 -Studies' tendencies to form selective traditions and canons, and by providing constructive alternatives in the shape of critical game design models (Flanagan 2009;Westecott 2013) and game research priorities (Ruberg and Shaw 2017). We situate our investigation of clickbait ludoporn as a queer curiosity 2 project in line with such traditions. ...
Despite its pervasiveness and prosperity in online spaces, the genre of playable online pornog- raphy, or ludoporn, has received little scholarly attention both in Human-Computer Interac- tion (HCI), Games Studies, and Porn Studies. In this paper, we discuss clickbait ludoporn as a hybrid design genre bridging games and pornography as they are offered for free on online platforms. We develop a tentative taxonomy of common design features, analysing game mechanics in terms of the libidinal investments and sexual pleasures promoted to players. Our analysis is based on a sample of 18 games retrieved from three different platforms. We suggest that the design of clickbait ludoporn mechanics incorporate mainstream approaches to sexuality, intimacy, and corporeality with fundamental consequences on how pleasure is culturally produced, articulated and normalised. We close on a call for game researchers and designers to claim the space of clickbait ludoporn with transformative intent. CONTENT NOTE: This paper contains graphic and sexually explicit visual as well as tex- tual material. Hence, reader discretion is advised.
... Much contemporary academic writing about game art has been successful in moving beyond early definitional challenges i.e., the question of whether games can be seen as an art form. The work of academics such as Flanagan (2009), Schrank (2014), Sharp --2 -- (2015), Upton (2015), etc. have, thankfully, become more concerned with situating a range of game art practices within particular frameworks than justify the status of games as art e.g., Sharp's discussion of game art, art games and games by artists. While these approaches have been productive in situating a range of expressive practices in and around game form within legible frameworks for pedagogic, curatorial, and critical ends we seek here to problematize these approaches. ...
A growing collection of art games can be identified as feminist, this paper gathers historical precedents to create an archive for future research. By identifying key feminist performance, interactive media, technology-based and game artworks over the past fifty years and placing them on a timeline we explore connections across time and context. The initial focus on Canadian artists moves forward to reference key international artists that contribute to a canon of feminist game art. The selection of work is partial, problematic, and inevitably reflects the biases of the authors, but aims at starting a process in the hope that others will diversify the works and framing selected. The research is intentionally promiscuous and pragmatic, offering future feminist game artists a heritage to draw on, a continuum to situate themselves in, or against, and tools for grant writing by identifying historical connections and contexts. By connecting game art to precedents, we look beyond the margins of game studies in a call for new conversations on art games.
... Critical game design requires an active attention to the values and ideologies that inevitably manifest in any game expression (cf. Flanagan 2009, Murray 2018. There have been various efforts to resist dominant ideas about game creation, especially through works made in artistic and activist game design contexts (Brice 2017;Tremblay 2018;Jenson and deCastell 2009;Westecott et al. 2013;Westecott 2013). ...
In this paper we develop the concept of design bleed, a standpoint approach to game design. We adopt the terminology of bleed from the Nordic community around live- action role-playing games and use it as a lens on game development. Based on our own experiences in developing two game jam games, Lovebirds and Get Your Rocks On, we identify four ‘ingredients’ for bleed-inspired game design. We develop design bleed as a community affirming design practice which can be used as a tool for carving out shared standpoints. We suggest that this is particularly productive for game designers at the margins, as it has potential to be creatively and emotionally healing but can also invite expressions for political resistance to normative game culture.
... In response to this feedback, we reframed our methods as playshops. The idea of playshops has been explored in various contexts-Wohlwend and Medina (2013) examined how writing playshops contribute to creating cultural imaginaries, while Rauch et al. (2016) demonstrated the value of applied play theory in fostering creativity, social interaction, innovation, and critical thinking (Huizinga 1950;Caillois 1961;Sutton-Smith 1992;Salen and Zimmerman 2004;Flanagan 2009;Sicart 2014). Originally developed in early childhood education, playshops were designed as a curriculum approach that treats play as a form of literacy, producing cultural narratives and offering a means to rethink cultural settings (Wohlwend and Medina 2013). ...
Increasingly, growing older is something we do alongside technologies. Often, through mobile media, our everyday practices of informal caring are being digitally mediated and mediatised. From apps such as Whatsapp to iOS Health, how digital technology is used to provide informal care in later life is poorly understood. Care operates intergenerationally and bilaterally—older adults often caring for young children as well as adult children caring for older adults with declining capacity. Mobile media technology has become an integral part of these informal care practices. Understanding what older people do with technology is important to map different media literacies, possibilities, and limitations in practice. In this paper, which draws on a larger study, we explore older adults’ informal digital practices through creative practice workshops in Victoria, Australia. In what we called ‘playshops’, we deployed playful and creative methods such as postcard prompts and mapping exercises to explore informal care practices used by older adults, many of which are so mundane that they remain invisible and are potentially missed in research. We performed this to map uses, barriers, and possibilities of mobile technologies in providing and receiving care. Based on these playshops, we argue that when digital media is used in everyday ways, it can lead to greater social connection and informal care for, with, and through older people. These everyday acts of care give voice and visibility to the diverse ways older people use technology to facilitate informal care practises.
... These in-game agencies are characterized by different capacities, abilities, and motivations afforded to the player by the design of the game environment (Nguyen 2020;Flanagan 2013;Tavinor 2009). For example, some games offer agencies which encourage us to take an interest in genuine cooperation (e.g., games like Pandemic or Mysterium); others are more self-directed, but success in these games still requires strategic social maneuvering (e.g., games like Risk or Catan). ...
Much of the existing philosophical literature on BDSM focuses on questions about the ethics of BDSM. But there is an underlying question here regarding the nature of BDSM, one which remains largely unaddressed. In this paper, I take that metaphysical question to be prior to the normative one. In other words: it will be important to have a clear view of what BDSM is before we go on to evaluate it. Accordingly, this is a paper about the nature of BDSM and BDSM activities: what they are like, what makes them unique, and the ways in which these activities might be valuable. Here, I work from the philosophical literature on games to analyze structured erotic encounters (or “scenes”) in BDSM. In the first half of the paper, I argue that BDSM scenes are games, and that understanding them in this way yields important insights into the roles of agency, autonomy, and value in BDSM. In the second half of the paper, I map points of connection between this view of scenes-as-games and the existing literature on BDSM in sexual ethics, in order to illuminate the ways in which a moral evaluation of BDSM scenes might proceed from this analysis.
... Games like Overcooked! and multiplayer modes in Minecraft reward cooperation and collective problem-solving, reinforcing behaviors associated with community and respect. Beyond teamwork, sandbox and creative games like Minecraft and LittleBigPlanet provide a medium for symbolic self-expression, where students can design virtual spaces that reflect moral values such as peace, justice, or community (Flanagan, 2009). Incorporating these digital tools in prosocial education encourages students to not only engage critically with moral concepts but also practice empathy and ethical decision-making in a controlled, interactive setting. ...
Promoting social and moral learning experiences in schools is an important aim for building strong, ethical, responsible and empathetic future generations. Digital natives will be more and more immersed in a volatile, complex and unpredictable world where responsible, ethical and socially sustainable decisions are a key component of resilient individuals and societies. Building teachers’ awareness related to the present topic will contribute to adopting more effective learning design strategies strongly connected to Alpha Generation learning needs. The main objective of this study is to review recently published papers on the most effective strategies and instructional formats to develop prosocial and moral attitudes and behaviors in educational settings. More specifically, using a narrative review approach, we discuss: a. the benefits of enhancing prosocial and moral education skills; b. the effectiveness of using video games and digital tools in prosocial and moral education; c. different strategies to use games and digital tools in design-learning for moral and prosocial education. The present article also aimed to design a specific instructional work-model using video-games for teaching the subject Religion based on supporting and enhancing prosocial attitudes, humanistic values and promoting self-efficacy, responsibility and ethical decision making. Implications for interdisciplinary research and practices for moral and social development are discussed.
... That being said, the claim that "games are safe" can be understood as part of the broader claim that "games are not impactful," the flip side of which is the well-discussed argument that "games are unproductive." In game studies, some scholars view the lack of productivity as a defining characteristic of games (Caillois, 2001;Huizinga, 1949), while others, particularly more recent scholars, believe that games can have a social impact and serve serious purposes (Frasca, 2007;Flanagan, 2009). Either way, one thing is clear: when YouXi or "game" is examined for its real-world impact, different cultures have their distinct focal points. ...
While there has been extensive academic discussion on the definition of games, very few studies have explored how similar concepts are expressed in languages other than English. In this paper, I investigate the etymology of the Chinese term YouXi, a Chinese term regarded as the equivalent of "game." Firstly, I discuss the possible origins, evolution, usages, and inherent aesthetics and values of YouXi. Secondly, I contrast YouXi with "game" and reveal that YouXi reflects a unified understanding of game and play. In addition, I argue that in terms of ontological differences, "game" highlights rule-based interaction and player competition, whereas YouXi emphasizes the sense of immersion and safety. Finally, I integrate these findings with existing game studies to propose a definition of YouXi as the experimental exploration of alternative life experiences and further suggest interpreting game and play through this perspective.
... In proposed typology, Flanagan identifies several categories: serious games, activist games (by individuals, organizations, or advocacy groups), artist games (for artistic expression), and radical games (also synonymously called games for change). The latter, through hyperbole, draw attention to seemingly unsolvable or challenging problems, particularly when conventional and conformist approaches to addressing these issues are considered (Flanagan, 2009). ...
... Carpenter (2021) refers to these as 4XGames -"Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate". Games researchers have also highlighted how many games embed narratives, imagery and gameplay which are, racist (Daniels, 2012, Nakamura 2009), sexist (Harvey, 2022, Flanagan 2009), exploitative (Wark 2007, Crocco 2011, aggressive and the encourage the erosion of empathy (Anderson C. A, et al, 2010, Fraser A 2012. ...
The objective of this paper is to contribute to discourse informing the use of computer games in Global Citizenship and Development Education. In doing so, it addresses the incompatibility and conflict between the values imbedded in games and those informing development education practice. It is aimed at both formal and informal educators who see the potential in using games in their practice and want to reconcile this dilemma. It is also aimed at policy makers and influencers who want to shape the structures governing such digital spaces in the public interest. The research involved an interdisciplinary literature review across the fields of Education, Game Design, colonialism and social activism. The analysis takes a postcolonial perspective and is informed by the theory and practice of critical pedagogy in youth work and development education. The study was conducted as part of Doctoral research and project work with NGOs over a seven-year period to 2024. In this context it is important to note that this is a rapidly changing and evolving sector. The development of computer games and immersive technologies over the past 20 years has been transformational, in their interactive capabilities and global proliferation, particularly with the emergence of “The Metaverse”. Such expansion has been critiqued as a process of Colonialism, where young people’s time, creativity, identities and attention is being commodified, monetised, packaged and sold to the highest bidder. The structure of the games industry, their content and the ecosystem surrounding gaming are all ideologically driven. Such ideology aligns with one of three systems: the neoliberal hegemony emanating from transnational corporations and market economies; the state control being exerted by China and others; or a blind commitment to opensource being advocated by many industry innovators, developers and users. When using games in an educational context, and particularly when addressing Social Justice and Global Citizenship, the values and cultures underpinning all three of these ideologies are problematic. It is the contention in this paper that such spaces can also be developed as informal educational spaces informed by values aligned with critical global citizenship and development education. Now is the time for development educational practitioners, conscientious games designers and policymakers to collaborate, to act, to legislate, to experiment and carve out a safe, progressive, dynamic, decolonised digital space for engagement with issues of global citizenship and development education
... We ask how games for thinking about the future may be designed that allow players to exercise control over their own experience, and to what effect. Inspired by the concept of critical play (Flanagan, 2009;Grace, 2014) and building on the distinction between narrative and mechanics as key constituting game elements, we have designed two distinct games for collaboratively engaging with the future. The first, Narrate, focuses on letting players invent their own narrative, whilst the second game Remix allows for experimentation with game rules and mechanics. ...
Games have been used in civic participation (Lerner, 2014) and civic learning (Raphael et al. 2010). Building on the idea of using games for participation, democracy and collaboration, we propose approaching games as tools for convivial learning. First introduced by Illich (1973), the concept of conviviality envisions a society characterised by collaboration and self-determination, underpinned by tools that encourage joyful interaction, creativity and human agency through control over the tools. We believe that games as convivial tools could help bring forth creativity and mutual learning about civic processes and desirable futures. Yet, games’ nature as rigid systems of rules (Salen & Zimmerman, 2010) seems potentially at odds with positioning them as tools promoting agency. We propose to use the tension arising between rigidity and agency as starting point for exploring game design strategies for convivial games through research-through-design. We ask how games for thinking about the future may be designed that allow players to exercise control over their own experience, and to what effect. Inspired by the concept of critical play (Flanagan, 2009; Grace, 2014) and building on the distinction between narrative and mechanics as key constituting game elements, we have designed two distinct games for collaboratively engaging with the future. The first, Narrate, focuses on letting players invent their own narrative, whilst the second game Remix allows for experimentation with game rules and mechanics. We present the design process for each game and contrast the different approaches taken. Each game was tested by two groups and analysed in regards to its capacity to bring forth conviviality, creativity and collaboration. The paper compares and provides a discussion on how suitable the two chosen strategies of experimenting with narrative or mechanics are for (1) facilitating thinking and learning about shared futures, and (2) supporting player agency and bringing forth convivial interactions.
... That is, a structure that is not just sequential but goes through a process of reveals, escalations and transformations but without losing its logical through line. Part of a successful narrative's construction in this case is space left for audience inference, breathing space and guess work as they collate and cross reference information ready to be applied to the future events of the plot (Bordwell 1997;Flanagan 2009;Ryan 2008). As Kauffmann states, drama is 'the emotions it evokes in the spectator ' (1992, 52) and those emotions are only stirred so that they can be clarified later in the process of catharsis (Golden 1962). ...
Video Games are composites of interlocking structures that collectively create meaning for the player to investigate and act upon. The most apparent form of meaning for the player is the narrative story or context. However, the narrative in a video game is structured and contextualized itself by the inherent form of the video game. This range of meaning making tools in the medium is both daunting and exciting. To understand the application of narrative better, designers, critics and academics need to be able to distinguish and understand the high-level structural layers that affect and support it. This paper offers a focused review of the relevant literature, explanations of key terms and diagrams and an illustration demonstrating the relationships of these structural layers.
... Likewise, de la Hera (2019) studied the persuasive dimensions that game designers can use to persuade players within immersive spaces. In this sense, game systems and mechanics can embody beliefs (Flanagan, 2009) and persuade players in particular situations (Bogost, 2007). For instance, as Chess and Consalvo (2022, p. 161) state: "Video games have had as much (or more) impact on our current politics and culture wars than many care to acknowledge." ...
This study reviews existing literature on how video games are being used to convey contemporary political discourse. Digital games, as meaningful cultural artifacts, have become a communication medium in their own right. They can serve as social mirrors, framing contemporary reality through metaphors that represent and recreate transcendent events or social facts through immersive experiences. Likewise, video games have played a significant role in shaping our current politics and culture. This article seeks to answer the research question: How has contemporary political discourse been explored through digital games in academic literature? To do so, we conducted a systematic literature review following the SALSA (search, appraisal, synthesis, and analysis) framework. We identified N = 25 journal articles written in English and Spanish, published between January 2013 and September 2023. We found that first-person shooter games were the most frequently discussed game genre in the academic literature, followed by newsgames. We propose a new method for categorizing political messages in digital games, which we have called the PRICE dimensions model (participation, representation, ideology, conflict, and education). The studied papers were classified into five main thematic groups: (a) video games as a tool for digital propaganda; (b) video games aiming to raise awareness of political issues; (c) games and gamification elements for radicalization; (d) game design that justifies, minimizes, or downplays violence; and (e) players’ role in conveying political messages.
This article presents our work-in-progress game Sea of Paint, aimed at exploring concerns around contemporary machine-learning-based AI technologies. It is a narrative-driven game with dialogues and a custom-made text-to-image system as its core mechanics. We identify our design approach as non-ludo-centric, as in, de-emphasizing the importance of mechanical interactions. We argue that contemporary game design language has largely been ludo-centric, where audiovisual and narrative aspects are framed as having somewhat static and complementary roles to rules and mechanics: as context, content, or smoothening and juicing up interactions. Although we do not believe that game design writ large has been ludo-centric, given the diversities of games in both commercial and experimental spaces, we still argue that the entanglement of design decisions across a game’s different aspects have been under-discussed. By presenting our project, we demonstrate how the interrelations across mechanical, narrative and visual aspects help us communicate our critical AI themes more effectively, and explore their potentials more thoroughly.
The text discusses under which conditions video games can philosophize by outlining a “Critique of Videogame Reason.” Section 1 introduces the idea that academic research, especially in philosophy, uncritically assumes that writing is the most effective way of expressing and communicating ideas. Section 2 (“Transcendental Aesthetic”) discusses the representational status of video games, claiming that they amplify and stimulate a sensorimotor way of “seeing.” Section 3 (“Transcendental Analytic”) argues that for a videogame knowledge and thinking to be possible, there must be a “gamish” mindset in which writing and reading are not just confined to the act of putting words in lines, but also entail the design of sets of actions. Section 4 (“Transcendental Dialectic”) advocates for a medial progressivist approach revolving around an expansive view of philosophical practice, claiming that a videogame philosophy must be able to provide at least three sui generis performances: enlightening the multi-modal, sensorimotor dimension that also characterizes the most amodal, linguistic concepts; building and supporting “emersive” experiences capable of taking specific advantage of the power of immersivity; and taking part in and fostering an explicitly dialogical interchange among scholars and researchers. Section 5 (Conclusion) envisages a more liberal and inclusive future for philosophical practice.
Esta pesquisa é um projeto inicial que se propõe a investigar a presença da arte, dentro de uma concepção mais tradicional, em jogos digitais, com destaque para o game mobile Sky: Children of the Light. O objeto de estudo foi escolhido pelo design diferenciado do jogo e por estar disponível em plataforma mobile, o que amplia o acesso a um universo maior de jogadores. Espera-se compreender, com esta pesquisa, como um jogo que adota um visual conectado a movimentos artísticos e ao tema presente possibilita uma estética diferenciada, onde se expressam beleza e/ou emoções. Além disso, busca-se entender como isso cria uma interconexão com a atividade lúdica e proporciona um espaço onde as interações sociais podem ocorrer de forma estruturada e significativa, contribuindo para a formação e o fortalecimento de vínculos entre os indivíduos. Por fim, o estudo visa compreender se os jogos digitais possuem qualidades que caracterizam as formas tradicionais de arte.
This article explores the intricate interplay between affective labour, quasi-objects, and board games, spotlighting the ancient game of Hnefatafl. Leveraging Italo Calvino's light/heavy distinction, we challenge the notion that games are mere lighthearted diversions, exposing their ideological weight. The discussion positions board games within the broader context of politics, culture, and media, presenting two fundamental propositions: first, that board games require affective labour from players to activate their political and ideological content; second, that games function as quasi-objects, as described by Michel Serres, which blur the line between subject and object and contribute to the formation of political communities. The article illustrates how these games reflect and reproduce social structures and hierarchies through the historical development of board games, from ancient race games to modern war games. The case study of Hnefatafl underscores the cultural and political significance of board games. It explores how the game's rules and structure mirror and reinforce societal values, particularly in the context of Old Norse martial culture. This means that games reproduce society by feeding back on cultural realities, both reflecting and constructing them. It illustrates that through this cultural reflection, board games also designate communal values and individual status.
In the heady discourse following the launch of Pokémon Go, many of the game’s influences, histories and precursors were forgotten or over-looked. Against the newness in which Pokémon Go is often framed, this article re-contextualises its history examining comparable practices and recalling the games evolution from earlier locative applications developed by Google to the experimental games of the modernist Avant Garde to which it has been compared. Central to this paper is discussion of the opportunities in the pervasive game development process for encoding and recoding the city by balancing in- game content with the nuances of the urban landscape in which it is played. While Pokémon Go has been revelatory in bringing awareness of pervasive gaming into the mainstream, this discussion of location-based games, public art projects, and playful approaches to urban exploration aims to fill gaps in the history of the field, and offer new possibilities for future game design and analysis.
Just as writers use specific literary devices to deliberately draw attention to a poem's form, in this paper I propose that game designers can make use of the structure of gameplay to draw attention to a game's formal qualities for "poetic" effect. Starting from Shklovsky's notion of defamiliarization and Utterback's concept of the poetic interface, I draw paral- lels between poetic language and the techniques used in games to create what I refer to as poetic gameplay. Through a close reading of Thirty Flights of Loving, I identify three pos- sible techniques for creating poetic gameplay: undermining the player's expectations for control, disrupting the chronological flow of time, and blurring the boundaries of the form. To demonstrate the potential use of these techniques for analysis, I discuss how these tech- niques appear in a range of games, suggesting that these techniques can serve as the basis for a more general set of techniques for creating poetic gameplay.
Events that bring people together to play video games as a social experience are growing in popularity across the western world. Amongst these events are ‘play parties,’ temporary social play environments which create unique shared play experiences for attendees unlike anything they could experience elsewhere. This paper explores co-located play experience design and proposes that social play games can lead to the formation of temporary play communities. These communities may last for a single gameplay session, for a whole event, or beyond the event. The paper analyses games designed or enhanced by social play contexts and evaluates a social play game, Ola de la Vida. The research findings suggest that social play games can foster community through the design of game play within the game itself, through curation which enhances their social potential, and through design for ‘semi-spectatorship’, which blurs the boundaries between player and spectator thus widening the game’s magic circle.
This paper presents Player Decentered Design as a design approach that actively opposes and subverts Player Centered Design. Arguments against Player Centered Design are that it restricts the possibility space of videogames, through a focus on player needs and desires above all other concerns. These criticisms are explored through an experimental game design documented as autoethnographic text. Player Decentered Design is presented as deriving from a reflective design process in communication with the literature and personal play history of the author. The approach is determined by a set of constraints that can then be utilised in future exploratory game design.
In this article I investigate playstyle as an aesthetic form of metaplay and explore its relation to subjectivity in terms of self-cultivation. By playstyle I refer to the form of the player's way of accomplishing practical actions framed by the gameplay task. I suggest that instead of a marker for personality types or a tool for optimizing competitive gameplay performance, playstyle should be viewed as aesthetic preference upon how to reach the goal of a game. As an aesthetic phenomenon, forming a playstyle is a process of self-cultivation, but its relation to the player's personality cannot be determined clearly. I inspect playstyle in terms of embodiment, somatic style and habit, highlighting its twofold nature between deliberate practice and unreflective spontaneity.
[Dalumat: Multikultural at Multidisiplinaryong E-Journal sa Araling Pilipino, vol. 10, no. 1] Marapat na mabigyan ng kritikal na makakalikasang atensyon ang kapuluang Pilipinas sapagkat pinagbabantaan ng kapitalohenikong aktibidad ang mayamang panlupa't pantubig na biodibersidad nito. Interesado ang papel kong ito sa mga larong tabletop at ang kanilang potensyal sa paglinang ng imahinaryong isinasaalang-alang ang ekolohiyang pang-isla ng bansa. Nagpopokus ako sa dalawa: ang Pawikan Patrol (2018) at Resilience: Survive and Thrive (2015). Sa pag-aaral na ito, binibigyan ng malapitang pagbasa ang "retorikang prosidyural" ("procedural rhetoric") ng dalawang laro. Sinusuri sa naturang lapit ang saligan, layunin, mga piyesa at elementong pisikal, at mekaniks ng mga tekstong binubuo ng mga hakbang at panuto tulad ng larong tabletop. Iminumungkahi ko na lunan ang dalawang laro ng "paglalarong arkipelahiko." Alinsunod sa mga palagay ng Karibong pilosopong si Édouard Glissant na nagtaguyod ng kaisipang arkipelahiko, ginagamit ko ang pariralang ito upang humalili sa dalawang operasyon. Una, sangkot sa kanilang gameplay ang paglikha at pakikilahok sa isang arkipelahikong espasyo kung saan ang kanilang mga elemento (tulad ng manlalaro) ay inuunawa bilang hiwa-hiwalay ngunit konektado. Ikalawa, sa paraang komunikatibo, itinuturo ng ganitong paglalaro ang pagkakaugnay-ugnay sa mga ekosistema at konserbasyon nito. Inaanyayahan tayo ng paglalarong arkipelahiko na pagnilayan ang ating politikang ekolohikal sa pamamaraang arkipelahiko: lokal, maramihan, at kinakatawan.
This paper reflects on my experience simulating an 18th-century French salon for an academic conference and in an undergraduate classroom. I argue that simulating a salon is heuristically as well as pedagogically useful and allows historians to test hypotheses about the nature of the salon and the role of the salonnière proposed by scholars such as Dena Goodman and Antoine Lilti. The essay also engages with some of the important insights gained from feminist and performance theory regarding historical reenactment. Thus I caution against naive attempts to reenact the past and instead suggest practices that foster open-ended conversations about the nature of the Enlightenment and our relationship to the past.
The opioid epidemic is a persistent public health problem throughout Canada, with opioid-related deaths spiking during the COVID-19 pandemic. Focusing on Brantford and Hamilton, Ontario, which have high rates of opioid poisoning, this participatory game jam project examines how 21 adults (ages 18+) with a history of opioid addiction make sense of their life experiences through the processes of autobiographical game-based storytelling, including ideation, narrative design, and environmental storytelling. Phenomenological interviews, processual artifacts like concept sketches, doodles, and reflections, and game prototypes generated through Scratch, Twine, and Bitsy facilitated the exploration of six key phenomena representing autobiographical game-based storytelling: maze metaphors, decision-making, compact games, morality and religion, resilience, and social communion. This interdisciplinary project explores how game-based storytelling supports recovery and restores dignity among adults experiencing opioid addiction while raising awareness of health inequities, thereby humanizing the opioid crisis.
This article aims to approach the problem of avant-garde digital games by analyzing them as proof of avant-gardes’ vitality and/or their demise. First, it seeks to investigate the presence of avant-garde as a term within contemporary digital game discourses. Second, it focuses on the digital games somewhat inspired by works and practices of avant-gardes and tries to investigate how the presence of avant-gardes within contemporary games may also indicate its demise. To deal with that ambiguous position, the concept of arrière-garde is proposed, as prescribed to contemporary works of art inspired by avant-garde movements and continuing their actions. The article concludes with two case studies, focusing on intertextual references to the Surrealism found in titles by Bedtime Digital Game and of cozy games which, despite not offering direct continuity, utilize art and mood as a means of political protest in a similar way to Czech Poetism.
Playful activity, despite its importance for humans of all ages, genders and cultural backgrounds, is an aspect of life that is still little explored. In this regard, since the end of the last century, the scientific community has witnessed to the formation of a new discipline, called Game Studies. To date, the latter brings together several disciplines, like cognitive sciences, mathematics, pedagogy, computer science and design. The essay investigates these aspects and tries to illustrate the points of contact between the disciplines of Game Studies and inclusive design.
This article addresses the striking resemblance of a late nineteenth-century obstetrical simulator to contemporary commercial paper dolls. This period is often characterised in histories of medicine as one of increasing institutionalisation and professionalisation of childbirth through hospital training and state regulation. But this narrative is only part of the story. It marginalises the perspective of patients and midwives, and those outside of the geographic ‘West’, and it silences aspects of medical culture: social and caring relationships, emotion, play, and humour. While these aspects of medical history are less well represented in textual sources, material objects like Shibata Kōichi’s ‘Obstetrical Pocket-Phantoms’ can help to give a fuller picture.
Beginning by situating Shibata’s phantoms in the conventional histories of obstetric training and the intermedial spaces of the clinic and lecture theatre, I then ask how the phantoms might have been used and understood differently outside of these spaces. Using Robin Bernstein’s concept of ‘scriptive things’, I employ a visual and material study of the objects, informed by the wider cultural contexts of dolls and popular print culture in Germany, the USA and Japan, to argue for a history of Shibata’s phantoms as paper dolls that encouraged many forms of play: from learning and explorative, to mothering and caring, to humorous and subversive. By acknowledging that Shibata’s phantoms would also have been recognised as paper dolls, I present a history that centres unrecorded aspects of, and under-studied agents in, medical culture.
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