Play Make Write Think

For this side quest, I focused on the materials and assignments that have covered in the course. The side quests, games, narratives, and podcast episodes, all went under the four components, play, make, write, think. Making these four components to correspond with the ingredients of a milk tea, I was trying to make it more understandable and interesting.

Throughout this course my way of thinking was challenged. I was engaged by having to often reverse engineer assignments. This would entail me having an end goal and instead working towards it, often I would have the goal and work backwards or have to skip from topic to topic. The best example I could give from the semester was when we were assigned to make a video game on an application called Twine. Most people when they make a game just need a concept with a thought out story, but in my case I had to start further behind. These developers already have people that make their thoughts become reality. I needed to learn how to code the game in Twine before a story could flourish. Then, this concept of Storyboarding was completely foreign to me, but as you can see below I think I did alright. 

“Intro story: Sam is a heart surgeon at the New York Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital. He wakes up at his usual 9 AM time. Today, he will head straight to the hospital where he will perform an open heart operation.  

Story 1) Sam takes the subway to get to work. 

Option 1a: Sam stops by his favorite pizza joint on the way to work.

Option 1b: Sam gets a quick deli sandwich on the way to work..

Option 1c: Sam doesn’t eat anything because he wants to watch those carbs.”

Above, we can see that for a student that has no understanding of this software or even how to make a video game. I was able to produce something that may get enough playtime to put a smile on my face. This ability to not work from point a to point b, has allowed my writing process to become more efficient.  The Twine game enhanced my ability to work in an organized, but more efficient manner. This is truly the skill that I appreciate most from this experience.

Heres a link to my reflection.

https://samwordgrantden.wordpress.com/2020/08/30/example-post/

This essay shows my past experiences with the English language. Although, they may be limited to many in this world, I found it hard to get out these words. I find it difficult to reflect on challenges in my life due to my emotional side. To balance this out, I incorporated points of success that came from these low lows. In doing so, I allowed my emotions to reach a point of equilibrium. For those of you who don’t have time to read the original post, I want you to read this line.

“For many, expressing their ideas and findings in a neat poster may be simple and come as second nature, but for second grade me it was cruel.”

This singular line describes the pain and suffering of my past which many people I feel can relate to. This idea of dread and anguish over expressing what seems known to you is brutal for me. This brutally procrastination still lingers with me, but I still get the job done.

My Co-Producer Brady Dolan, says he didn’t do all that much, but I feel that he kind of carried hard on this podcast. He had such a great way of explaining the Journey game to me, so I wouldn’t feel left. Of course, I watched a lets play, but its never quite the same as experiencing it for yourself. It was nice to have more insight before completing this final podcast. Having already completing the Portal podcast beforehand, this allowed me to breeze through the process as I had experience producing and editing the audio files and completing the transcript. I was proud of our group because we struggled the first time. Now, I can say that if needed in the future a podcast will be no big deal.

This was my first time ever as a Co-producer on a podcast ever. Before this assignment, I didn’t even listen to a podcasts, let alone make some. I had my eyes set on doing the Portal Series because it is such a classic Valve produced game. I thought that hundreds of thousands that have played through without knowing what the game did for them. In this episode, myself and Brady delved into the strong female movement that was started by the Portal series. We as players go through the game trying not to die, but in this brady and myself talk about the benefits a player gains without them knowing. Before writing the script, I did not knowing how socially enriching this game was to such a large male audience. I had fun, but worked hard on something I am actually proud besides the fact that I hate listening to my own voice.

My group’s Twine game is about the early stages of Covid-19 and the story of three people who contracted it. The three characters who catch the virus are drastically different in terms of their occupation. The point of the game is for the audience to learn how different socioeconomic states can impact people’s experience with the virus. The goal is for people to hopefully gain empathy for people that are struggling with the virus firsthand and take note of the gravity of the pandemic so everyone can take the pandemic with the necessary caution and seriousness.

Our group set the setting and time intentionally as Tuesday, March 5th in New York City, two days before NY Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency, so our characters aren’t familiar with the mask-wearing protocols. The three characters we based our Twine game on is a heart surgeon (Sam), a construction worker (Frank Briganti), and a CEO (Bill Stevens). As the player picks a character and makes decisions for the character, (spoilers alert) the player will always end with the character dying from the virus. When the player finishes a character’s journey, we reveal when and where the character unknowingly caught the virus; each character was programmed to catch the virus in the very beginning of their journey. This intentional decision by the group was to hopefully underscore the fact that the people can get the virus and unknowingly live their lives normally, spreading the virus during that incubation process. It was also to serve as a ‘surprise factor’ though I don’t how effective that was.

Making the Twine Game was pretty fun for my group. Although the job became tedious at some parts, as we had to plan out and write numerous options and the subsequent, corresponding pathways of decisions, it was interesting to come up with a fictitious but believable storyline. My main role for the project writing the storyline for one of the characters; I wrote the storyline of Sam the surgeon. At the start of the project, after my group got into a Zoom call, we just started discussing and fishing out things we could write about. After we came up with the basis of the game, we just all started writing. When all was done and our group presented our game to the class, it turned out that our concept was similar to those of other groups, predictably so considering all we think about is the dreadful pandemic. I thought the final product came out well; if my group had more time, we definitely would have added more pathways to make it each character storyline to be more interesting.

I learned many things from making the game. The most relevant skill I learned was developing a fictional storyline a number of corresponding hypotheticals. It was the first time I did something like this. I don’t usually write fiction in the first place, so writing for our Twine game was definitely a new experience. I hope use these skills again in the future if I have another project like this.

In terms of how our game accomplished the learning objectives of ENG 101 with Professor David Morgen, we fined our skill of practice writing as a process. When we were all making pathways after each decision, my group constantly made revisions on the new options and even the original decision—back-and-forth—just so everything seemed coherent. Our group also demonstrated collaborative skills; our group met 2 times over Zoom and conversed frequently through GroupMe. We used technology to communicate with each other on the game’s development, and it helped us tremendously.