Today’s Plan:
- Quick Hit: Labor Based Grading
- Sicart Summary Papers
- Discuss: Walking Dead
- Homework for Friday and Beyond
Quick Hit: Labor-Based Grading
I wanted to remind you that this course uses a labor-based grading system, such that you earn an 85% for turning assignments in relatively on-time (assuming those assignments address basic requirements and suggest an authentic amount of effort). Every Sicart paper I’ve received has earned an 85%. Good!
Sicart Summary Papers
I am still missing quite a few papers. I’ve put a zero in the gradebook to fire a shot across the bow. It is not too late to turn those papers in for full credit.
I will go over the papers more on Friday–I think I’ve got enough stuff to do today.
Sicart Heuristic
I’ve mentioned the Sicart heuristic ad nauseam our first two weeks. Today I’d like to share a draft I’ve put together.
I’ll work more on this for Friday (I’m pulling some of this material from previous iterations of the heuristic and some directly from your papers).
Discuss: Walking Dead Episode #1
I want to try something.
Homework
Your homework for Friday is quite simple: you have to identify and procure the game you will play for the Sicart Analysis paper. If you want, you can get started on the gaming journal.
I will give more details about the paper on Monday. But you should already have a sense of what this paper will ask you to do:
- You will play a game for 6-8 hours. After every two hours of gameplay, you will free write for 20 minutes, using the heuristic as a guide. I do not expect a journal entry to be polished prose, but I am expecting about 300 words per entry. And I am expecting the entries to move beyond plot and use the heuristic (so some rough analysis). Move between concrete details in the story and/or game design/mechanics/systems, Sicart’s theory, and your phenomenological response (are you invested? frustrated? bored? did you care about making decisions? why or why not? Can you identify what the developer is attempting to make you think/feel/struggle with? Was their attempt successful?)
- You will compose a paper (likely in the 1500-2000 word range) that analyzes your game and gameplay in terms of Sicart’s theory of ethical gaming, highlighting how the developers aimed to build (or failed to build) player complicity, whether/how their choices reflect Sicart’s theory of wicked problems, and whether/how the game forces you to reflect on your decisions and have a non-instrumental experience.
Your homework for next Monday is to play your game for 2-3 hours and compose the first entry in your gaming journal. Your homework for next Wednesday is to play your game for two hours and compose the second entry in your gaming journal. Your homework for next Friday is to play your game for two hours and compose the third entry in your gaming journal. So, by next Friday (September 17th), you will have played your game for 6-8 hours and written three gaming journal entries.
Gaming journal entries should use the heuristic to guide your free-writing. Don’t feel as if you need to respond to every question on the heuristic–try and identify what is most relevant to your play experience.
