This year I attended the Canadian Game Studies Association alongside a co-author and friend, Dr. Ryan Scheiding. He does some incredible work on historical narratives within games, and together we talked about the import of considering game affordances when making educational titles. So, on June 9, 2023, Dr. Scheiding and I presented a retrospective of our two games and how we thought about genre and design affordances to capture learning material.
What do I mean about design affordances? I will admit it sounds a bit jargony and do apologize, but in short, we are talking about how some games and types of games offer particularities that we can consider as designers. For example, I discussed Lizards and Lies and why I specifically choose a simulation style board game to represent social media and the spread of disinformation on it. My goal was to make disinformation tangible - to make it felt - boardgames let us move pieces, pick them up, put them down, and manipulate a space. I looked at simulation design because I wanted players to understand the connectedness of digital media. I could have followed the approach of other media literacy titles and used a narrative video game like Bad News Game, but I prioritized asking, “what mechanics and system best reflect what I want to teach” over “How do I most easily instruct”.
Ryan focused their discussion on Nagasaki Kitty, a videogame that depicts historical narratives around the atomic bombs. Ryan’s work pointed to the import of thinking through open world spaces, to use RPG Maker MV over software like Twine (typically used for narrative games) to allow players some freedom and agency over exploring the nuclear aftermath.
The presentation was short, but we tried to encapsulate it in a 10-minute video, you can check out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2HFZ4Gdkqk&list=PLav_4gycS5pAPgJs6zQb69d1jrbBfj81x
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