Play Make Write Think

I find this assignment particularly memorable because it was so different from other essays and assignments I have done in the past.

First, I have never written an analysis on games before. By analyzing Gone Home and Gris, I was able to pick up on little details I would have missed had I not done the assignment. I think it was less about comparing the games and more about how different games benefit us in different ways.

Second, this essay was the first long writing assignment I have for a long time, since high school to be exact. I felt rusty getting back to writing but at the same time I can understand why it was so important to learn to articulate my thoughts well on paper. I felt much more organized writing an essay then say giving a presentation.

essay: https://thisiselainecom.wordpress.com/game-comparison/.

        The thesis in my essay is that though in different games trauma could be expressed in different ways and emotions, love, hope, salvation is always revealed through the topic of trauma. When I first tried to write this essay in such format, I was very wired that I have never written an essay that is straightforward like this. However, writing the thesis statement at the end actually helps me to reflect the central idea the broader picture of my essay after finishing the most part of it. And I organized my essay by three parts: the first two-part comparison, and the final big picture; the first sentence of each paragraph is always a sort of summary and the middle sentence is usually a transition. Throughout the process of my writing, I dig deep in the games that I analyzed. I was amazed and surprised that though both games appear have few connections, but the whole emotional connections related to trauma is quite the same. 

Essay: https://wordpress.com/page/andrewmagica.wordpress.com/163

Thesis: The vagueness and repetition used in Gris and Gone Home allow the gamer to be vulnerable and understand their own trauma.

For the majority of my writing education, I have been writing deductive essays. My usual formula for writing essays is to start with a general hook, connect it to my thesis, and then get specific. Even though this was an inductive essay, I still decided to start with a general hook just to let my ideas flow onto the page. I took it out after. I honestly enjoyed writing an inductive essay because the flow of ideas made sense to me. I started off by talking about vagueness in the games and providing evidence and context from the game. I then talked about what the theme allowed the gamer to learn about trauma. I then did the same thing for repetition. At first, I included vulnerability, a word important to my thesis, in my first paragraph because it explained my theme well. I realized however that vulnerability also connected to my other theme, repetition. I then decided to use the word as the key part of my thesis. The inductive nature of the essay allowed me to enhance my themes by bringing them together. Both themes allowed for the same effect on the player, so it made sense to do it that way. The difficulty in writing this essay was that it was difficult to find evidence. It’s not like you had a text that you could easily get information from. We played some of these games a long time ago, and I needed to replay certain parts, which took up time. In playing through the parts of the game again, I focused on how the game affected the player more than figuring out how the game works. This allowed me to see how vulnerability and repetition were used well in the game, and how the games focus on different aspects of Trauma.

My Game Comparison essay mainly focuses on how Gris and Gone Home, despite being so obviously different, provide players with an authentic and real experience of what trauma does to the brain, and thus give a deeper and more meaningful understanding of what trauma is.

When I started writing this essay, I wasn’t sure about what my thesis was going to be. I had a pretty clear idea about which aspects of trauma I wanted to focus on, however, and so I decided to begin writing. The first part of three talks about the lack of direct linguistic representation of trauma in Gris and Gone Home. The second part is about the relationship of characters with their surroundings, and the space around them, and how trauma impacts this. I had spent a whole day just replaying both the games, and continuously taking notes about any thoughts I had, or anything I found interesting. So, for the first two parts I had sufficient content, I just had to organise it. Even after I finished these two parts, I did not have a clear idea for what I wanted my thesis to be. It was close to 4 AM and I really had to finish it. Out of ideas, I opened a fresh page in my notebook and in block letters at the top I wrote– “WHAT DO I WANT TO SAY?” I tried to answer this question as honestly as possible without thinking about how I would articulate the thoughts into my essay, and managed to fill a whole page within just a few minutes. I assimilated these raw thoughts, along with other observations I had made throughout the process of writing the essay and honed it into a thesis statement and also gave a broad overview of what I was trying to say in the final part.

On the whole, it was difficult to break away from the standard 5 paragraph, intro-body-conclusion structure, as that is what I have been programmed to do ever since I can remember. But, it was interesting because I think that this new format allowed me to analyse and think about the games in greater depth than I would otherwise.

In order to write this essay, I have replayed the two games that I talked about, Gone Home and Gris. During the replay, I discovered new elements like Terry’s story that I didn’t notice in the first time. Completing the puzzle is what I did right after I finished playing the two games and before I write the essay. I intentionally hided my thesis until the last paragraph for the readers to discover. I organized my essay through pieces that seems irrelevant by at the end and will come together as my thesis. I think the new structure went pretty smooth overall, despite there could be some inconsistency.

While writing this essay I realized how, not being given a very specific structure affected my writing. I still had little to no problem completing this essay but I just found it interesting that I had to create a whole structure by myself. At first I start with my introduction then the body paragraphs switch from each game and they are compared with each other. I was surprised by how much I picked up my typing speed from the 3rd page because the first two pages were not as exciting in my opinion.