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. |