Tag: games comparison reflection

Throughout the times writing this essay, I went back to the two games, Gone Home, and Gris, in order to gain a refreshed memory of how these games felt like to me. Repeated play-throughs of these two games were definitely not as enjoyable as the first time, but it did help me gain a better understanding since I have acquired more knowledge above games after obtaining more class experience. The paper included roughly three parts: one introducing Gone Home, the other introducing Gris, and the last merging their similarities together. I actually quite enjoyed this new style of putting a thesis at the end of a comparison paper. While writing to conventional essay I would take a long time to plan out my thesis and construct the structure of the paper before I even begin, this new style felt more intuitive to me. I have always felt like the thesis would be a rephrased conclusion, while in this essay, putting the thesis in the end paragraph, I did not have to rephrase the same idea twice. One flaw of this writing style could be that the paper will flow more intuitive, which could be beneficial. However, in the case of very long pieces this writing style may lead to repetition of the same ideas or logical inconsistencies.

To view the game comparison paper, visit link below:

https://royf94.wordpress.com/game-comparison-gone-home-v-gris/

The main thesis of the essay is about how the coping of trauma propagates the feeling of empathy for the characters involved who are jumping over the imposing hurdles of trauma.

I thought that writing an inductive essay was much harder than writing a deductive essay. In my writing upcoming, I was accustomed to writing a standard 5 paragraph essay: the introduction states the main thesis of the essay, the 3 body paragraphs each support the main thesis with different reasonings, the conclusion paragraph brings the essay to a natural ending and reinstates the main thesis. Saving the thesis for the very end felt weird to do. From a structural viewpoint, I feel like writing the body, support paragraphs following the introduction helps me as a writer because I am constantly aware how to connect the body paragraph back to thesis. When I have the thesis at the end, especially when the thesis is underdeveloped, writing a thesis statement that forcibly connects the body paragraphs seems difficult to do.

In frank words, I am not sure I correctly followed the Professor Morgen’s intended structure. The purpose of the prompt to compare 2 games—in my case, Gris and Gone Home—I wrote the first 2 paragraphs contrasting the clearly different games. I then dedicated the last 2 paragraphs to how the games involve the theme of trauma and coping of trauma. The very last paragraph continues the discussion of the third paragraph and connects how the characters’ dealing with trauma forces us to empathize with the characters.

I learned about the inductive essay format because it was my first time writing it. I was surprised at how challenging it was for me to write it. I’m not sure if the difficulty originated from the fact that I hadn’t played the 2 games for a long time or because of the inductive essay structure. If I had a choice, I would much prefer writing a deductive essay than an inductive essay.

Find the game comparison essay here

To structure my essay in a reversed order is an exciting but challenging try for me. I enjoyed the process of simply starting to write without worrying about a big, eye-catchy, and demanding thesis. However, as I went further, I noticed that I lost track of what I wanted to say. I jumped from ideas to ideas and it was hard for me to keep writing, being confused and not knowing where I really wanted the essay to go.

There were three parts of this essay. The first two were two contrasts that I recognized and the last part was a main thesis part…

I learned that writing in a reversed order does not mean that we do not need to know what we’re supposed to write about from the beginning. It actually means that we need to have a better sense of what we’re writing.

To read my Game Comparison Essay, please click here.

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.