Games in the Classroom: Teaching Games

I’m taking a short break from Game Anatomy.  A couple of reasons for this.  First, I need to do some research on a couple of items I want to write about, but I also need to finish a couple of games before I write about them.  This includes Dark Souls III, but I’d also like to finish Twilight Princess HD, since I have a bit to say about that in regards to it, Wind Waker and Ocarina of Time (and Majora’s Mask if we have time).  Also, this is an idea that’s been bouncing around in my head for years, and it’s something I’m somewhat ready to write about.  We’ll see if that supposition is correct.

I’ve mentioned my former day job as a journalist on this blog before, but I don’t know if I said that when I quit my first newspaper job, I moved into education.  Mostly, I wasn’t happy  in journalism, but I also felt there was more I could do as a person as a teacher than as a journalist.  Also, journalism was getting in the way of the writing I actually wanted to do, but the first two are a lot more important.  Anyway, since getting involved in education, I’ve noticed that games are an important part of learning, and I’ve been trying to find ways to bring games into the classroom, from utilizing game design elements in my lesson plans to actually attempting to teach a video game in in the classroom.  One of these, so far, has been more successful than the other.  It’s kind of surprising which one is which.

This past year, I took a week to teach to a group of seniors, as a test, the first episode of Life is Strange.  Life is Strange is an episodic neo-adventure game not unlike the Walking Dead or new King’s Quest games featuring a girl named Max Caulfield who can alter time.  There are several decision points in the game, and using the ability to alter time can change these decisions.  Each decision can change how the story goes, but, as the story goes on, altering the past can also alter what options Max has.  It’s not super complicated, it’s just that she can remember everything she’s done, so sometimes she can get new options if she’s seen something enough times.  It’s very cool, and I used it to approach literary analysis in a different way.

Image copyright Square Enix. Also, she really doesn’t look like that in the game.

One of the things I was observing with my students was a difficulty approaching analysis of literary devices and themes.  I wasn’t sure if the issue was technical on their part, instructional on my part, or just a lack of engagement.  My actual findings on this are a going to remain secret, but I had a feeling that a video game would help ease people into it.  My first thought being that my kids would have more interest in a video game than a 200 year old book (although I think my kids responded quite well to Frankenstein), my second being that an interactive medium would allow for a greater element of engagement.  Books are definitely an interactive medium, at least more so than television or film, but they are not at the level of a game.  Third, I really had an idea that the changing of story, the concept of actual, if limited choice, would allow the students to really understand literary analysis if I focused their analysis on the choices.

So, my first idea was to teach the Rachni choice in Mass Effect.  It’s a weighty choice, and it feels bigger than it actually turns out (ugh, Mass Effect 3, what don’t you ruin?), but it also required a lot of set up and buy in from the audience.  Certainly, when the player is right in the game, it’s great, but to throw a bunch of kids, many of whom don’t play video games like I do, or at all, into something like that, it wouldn’t work.  So, I needed something that required a small amount of games literacy, and would also require a limited amount of buy in for the students to get involved.  So, I did an adventure game, which is about as simple as far as gameplay mechanics goes.  All of the interactions with the game are done simply and are easy enough for everyone to understand.

Ultimately, there were about three things I learned.  First, this game has the word “fuck” a lot more than I thought, but still less than I heard in the halls when I was a student.  Second, buy in and engagement are not as hard as they seem.  Many of the kids were sucked into the game right away.  It doesn’t have the best dialogue or story, and honestly, the main characters kind of suck, but it feels fun and has a very teenage appeal.  Third, literary analysis is still difficult, no matter how sucked in you may be, and additional instruction was still required.