Arcade. Tabletop. Film/Animation. Conference. Music. XOXOis an arts and technology conference that curates examples of creativity and innovation that disrupt the status quo in social and professional contexts. It began in 2012 by two Andys, Andy Baio (of Upcoming, Kickstarter, and Waxy), and Andy McMillan of Build and The Manual, and has been held in Portland, OR. Story Our students, whether they're 2 or 22 years old, have encountered storytelling in various forms, and are learning both from these stories, as well as how to share their own via this multitude of avenues. At this year's XOXO, I attended a few of these marvelous examples of storytelling that I think serve as wonderful models for potential student projects: Fray Cafe: "Before The Moth, before Risk!, before Mortified, before Snap Judgement, there was Fray Cafe. 5 minutes. One live microphone. Your stories." At this event, I heard stories told live about saving a new neighbor's life, the decision to go on antidepressants, and a near death experience while lost on a desert hiking trail. Imagine live (rehearsed) storytelling at school assemblies! Reply All: "Stories about how people shape the internet, and the internet shapes people." I had the joy of witnessing PJ Vokt and Alex Goldman perform a live taping of an episode at XOXO for this podcast. I am in love with podcasts, and what a great medium for students to share new knowledge, process and reflect, and demonstrate understanding. Arcade Video games are now being played by equal numbers of people of all genders and ages. It was recently announced that the largest demographic of gamers is adult women. Our students play games, but, as president Obama said, today's youth should stop playing games and start making them. Hyper Light Drifter: Heart Machine's highly-anticipated indie game was funded by a blockbuster
Kickstarter project that raised over $645k from 25,150 backers in 2013.
The fast-paced 2D action RPG was inspired by SNES classics, and creator
Alex Preston’s congenital heart condition. Heart Machine
designer/developer Teddy Deifenbach talked with me about what could attract middle school gamers: "The character has a heart condition, but kids might not get that. They'll connect to the adventure story, and enjoy exploring around the big game world." Using tools like Game Maker, Gamesalad, RPG Maker, Twine, and Scratch, students can design their own games (and learn some basic javascript along the way) that tell any story they like.
Tacoma: Fullbright's follow-up to Gone Home was debuted as a playable demo, where you get to explore an abandoned space station to solve the mystery of the missing crew. I spoke with Fullbright's Karla Zimonja, who is an active supporter of young people learning new narratives through video games. Tacoma is being designed using Unity, which is an app students can use for free.
Feminist Frequency: One aspect of video games that's important to address and think critically about is how inclusive the medium is for wide audiences. When students are crafting game narratives, it's important that they consider their audience, and strive for inclusivity. Anita Sarkeesian hosts and produces a webseries called Feminist Frequency that "explores the representations of women in pop culture narratives." These videos are meticulously crafted, exhaustively researched, and highly regarded in the industry as truly game-changing (no pun intendo) analyses on the history, current state, and future of the art. Sarkeesian spoke at XOXO about the evolution and reach of this series, and I'll share one video here that is appropriate for teens in the classroom: There's so much more to share - perhaps in another post! What I enjoyed most from XOXO was being inspired by the ways these professionals are engaging with and reshaping our world. I aim to pass on this inspiration to my students, show them what sorts of 21st century career paths await, and guide them in gaining some skills that will start them on their path.
Gone Home by Fullbright isone of the most inclusive stories in video game history, and my students played it together to talk about tropes in video games. The students even got to visit Fullbright and ask the game developers questions! First, some context:
I was leading a game design summer camp and ended up with a dozen boys - no girls enrolled. I wanted to treat it like an affinity group for male gamers.
The tech industry has always been a major cultural battlefield for women, due to push back and misogynistic attacks from male industry folk. As the Daily Dot reported, the largest demographic in gaming is adult women, although the stories they encounter are largely dominated by male characters, while female characters are often objectified, typecast, victimized, and/or otherwise marginalized - usually non-playable. These gender tropes are deconstructed so well in the series Tropes Vs Women in Video Games
by YouTube channel Feminist Frequency, that it has earned worldwide attention with 200,000 subscribers and 20 million views to
date.
Gone Home, on the other hand, stars a young woman, includes LGBT characters, and constructs a narrative that cleverly sets the player up to expect one kind of archetypal story by using several tropes of the "survival horror" genre, only to find a very different story that nimbly unfolds within 2 or 3 hours of gameplay.
The game received 7 perfect scores from sites as reputable as Giant Bomb and Polygon.
Gone Home in the classroom: Fullbright was very generous and donated copies of Gone Home for my students to play. I didn't tell my students anything about the game, except that I'd scheduled a visit to Fullbright later that week, and that they needed to think of questions to ask the game developers. What I did talk about with students involved a more general discussion around gender and video games, fit for a male gamer affinity group just beginning to talk about this topic. We generated this list of games starring playable female characters: Metroid Tomb Raider Mirror's Edge Portal Last of Us Ms. Pac-Man Students were proud to know these titles, and they were happy to see such representation of female characters in games, until we all quickly ran out of titles to add. (Here's an online list, including supporting and non-playable characters). We were able to make a long list of games where female characters needed to be saved by male characters.
When it came time to play Gone Home, my students played through it pretty quickly - within 2 or 3 hours. As a homework assignment, it could be spread out through a few days. NOTE: The game is rated for players aged 16 and older. The students really enjoyed the game, and they asked the game developers, Steve Gaynor and Karla Zimonja, several thought-provoking questions, that I won't include, because they're spoilers!
Their experience playing Gone Home in the classroom was very social. It started out with kids comparing progress with each other, punctuated by the occasional scream of anticipation, imagining what they might find rounding the next creepy corner of game space.
By the end of the game, all they were talking about was the story. They were comparing notes with each other, trying to piece it together, one clue at a time. This kind of story was new to them, and no one wrote it off. They were compelled to see the complete picture, as if they were afraid to miss a single detail. The boys talked about the LGBT aspect of the story like it was the norm (which gave me great hope for the next generation), but they weren't talking about it with the fluency that comes with comfort and experience. I'd wager that this game brought them one step closer to feeling comfortable discussing LGBT issues among male peers. Gone Home is interactive literature, and the buy-in that came with its well-designed gameplay was 100% effective in engaging a group of teen boys. It set the stage for an entire course about inclusive storytelling. Who does this story welcome in? Who is this story about? Who might not feel represented in this story? As the story plays out, who wins? Who loses? Who's in danger? Who might feel unsafe or powerless as they hear this story?
Here were some of the takeaways that kids wanted to share with Fullbright after their visit:
"I loved hearing about how Gone Home was made - how it was supposed to be horror, and how you interviewed people and based it off their experiences." "I loved the attention to detail in the level design." "Thank you for not only presenting to us your individual jobs, but the way you design great games as a team. I hope to play Tacoma once it's published!" "Thanks to your group for showing us how a great game can be made with a small group of talented people." "I loved Christmas Duck and seeing the artwork Karla was working on."
Gone Home is my favorite game, so I also really enjoyed meeting its designers, Steve and Karla. Here's a photo of us with Christmas Duck, who plays a major role in the game.
