Building the Labyrinth:
Adapting Video Game Design Concepts for Writing Course Design


Craig McKenney, Highline Community College

 

 

 
“Writing unfolds like a game (jeu) that invariably goes beyond its own rules and transgresses its limits.”
- Michel Foucault, What Is an Author?

 


 

Rebuilding the Game

At this point, it is prudent to tackle the question of “Why video game design concepts?”  When thinking about this, I even asked myself how game design was different than any other design or planning activity.  One major goal I have for students is that they start to build a toolkit of writing skills that they can draw on for any assignment in which they might be asked to write, no matter the subject.  To that end, students develop a Writing Philosophy early on in the quarter that is revised as the quarter progresses.  That allows students to reflect on their work, but also on their progress with process.  Without this level of metacognition, the writing process is often deemed pointless or frustrating, as there is no one right answer for every student.  Students should leave the class with their own plan for writing a text (website, essay, documentary film, comic, etc).  Because there is no one right way to do things, students should feel free to try new methods of and forms of writing -- without fear of penalty.  It is through experimentation (and sometimes mistakes) that the best playing/ learning happens.  Peter Elbow is famously recognized for observing that this safety (confidence, strong sense of self) is essential to a writing classroom.  This notion is supported by the works of David Bartholomae (empowerment of students via discourse communities), Ann Wysocki (scaffolding for and with new media), Pierre Levy (collective intelligence), and Ian Bogost (procedural rhetoric) among many.  This need for safety, comfort and democracy functions so that the “student can take risks” (Bush).  But, like the writing classroom of old, games are also structured and rule-oriented.  However, the rules in video games are mutable and/ or allow for open exploration.  Much like Elbow’s advocacy of freewriting as a low-risk push to writing (as seen in Writing Without Teachers), the internal design structure of a video game-multliple access points with multiple options for play that yield multiple outcomes for the endgame-empowers the player through non-linear or free, open, uncensored play. 

To be more specific, class structure becomes one of emergence, "where a game is specified as a small number of rules that combine and yield large numbers of game variations, which the players then design strategies for dealing with" (Juul, "The Open and the Closed: Game of emergence and games of progression"), and the work/ play of the student is progressive, where challenges are introduced to the player in serial form (Juul, "The Open and the Closed: Game of emergence and games of progression". ).  This is key, as both encourage exploration without the risk of failure and also puts the player/ student in control of his/ her work.  Adapting this approach in class reinforces what they already experience and allows a bridge to the kinds of writing that need to be done to yield student success. 

This freedom of movement is accomplished via the non-linear way that most games are played.  As Diane Carr outlines, there are three choices for world building in video games: the maze, the rhizome and the labyrinth.  Extending the work of Janet Murray in interactive fiction, Carr describes the game rhizome as “the kind of tuber root system that, like a potato, can sprout in any direction” (62).  The maze is seen as less desirable because it pushes the reader/player to one definitive conclusion/path (games of emergence), whereas the rhizome does not prescribe any given path and therefore could be too unwieldy in its lack of structure (games of progression).  Thus, Carr presents the labyrinth format as a happy medium between the two formats Murray outlined.  “The labyrinth might be more maze-like, or more rhizomic, and […] these qualities could be incorporated in varying degrees, in order to generate different experiences for their users” (62).

I’m not sure that I can convince a non-gamer that video game design concepts are different in a significant enough way to that of other design schema.  I would argue that significant difference is not even a worthwhile pursuit, but rather to focus on the fact that game design concepts consider, capture and engage the student more wholly than current composition instruction/ practices.  One allows for the building of an individualized experience, and the other simply imposes the instructor’s experience.  Video game design concepts best build that experience by mimicking the learning style of the millennial student and also reinforce three key experiential concepts: engagement, rigor and achievement. 

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