Promoting Creativity Through Art Games

In this article, game designer Sande Chen discusses how a different approach to teaching about art games spurred an outpouring of creativity.

In 2017, I began teaching a course that had been created as a result of a grant and therefore, was a hodgepodge of advanced topics. Others had taught it more akin to a cultural or game studies class with an emphasis on essay writing, but the college thought the class would be more appealing if each student had a game created by the end of the class. Because the only prerequisite was English 101, I had students who had never taken a game design class who now needed to design and create a game that would be considered outside of mainstream entertainment.

Administrators and principals often feel that if their students design these types of games, especially learning games, this is somehow more redeeming. Perhaps they feel that that the 'educational' part would balance out the 'game' part. They do not realize that merging learning with game design in a way that is not edutainment is not an easy task! Moreover, first-year students, and especially those without game design experience, generally do not have the interest in designing these games. They want to create the games they see and like to play.

Faced with these challenges, I began to view the course as a survey class, as an introduction to games outside the mainstream. The students would play analog games, learn Twine, and design games along these confines. This seemed to do well for the sections I had divided out as learning games, story games, and social interaction games.

But alas, art games, I felt, was always the section better suited for a paper but the students lacked the tools for game analysis. It soon began apparent that students were struggling. They didn't understand art games and they didn't want to play art games. They certainly did not want to write about art games. I had long before learned that even with entertainment titles, once it became about analysis, students viewed playing games as work.

I should explain that by art games, I do not mean games about art or about drawing. There are always a few students who do not get it. Rather, I am referring to the genre of "art games," those that regularly appear in indie fests and sometimes in art museums.

The Marriage by Rod Humble
By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47603426

I was always striving to improve the course and revised the syllabus constantly. It was always the art games section that would get a complete makeover.

The last time I taught this course, we spent class time playing The Marriage by Rod Humble, Passage by Jason Rohrer, and several games by Daniel Benmergui. Some students were intent on "beating" each level. Instead of a paper, they were assigned a presentation on how they might approach creating their own art game. The focus of the section was not on analysis but on how these games were more personal to the creators.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a number of presentations pitching games based on deeply personal topics such as depression, work-life balance, feminism, and the importance of family. These were all topics that were important to the students and a couple brave students bared their souls about why it was so important that they had to make these games. In the end, although it was not required, several students wanted to make their own art games, even though they only had the means to create Twine or analog games.

I was amazed by the complete turnaround. Art games had gone from most-hated to well-received.

Sande Chen is the co-author of Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform. As a serious games consultant, she helps companies harness the power of video games for non-entertainment purposes. Her career as a writer, producer, and game designer has spanned over 15 years in the game industry. Her game credits include 1999 Independent Games Festival winner Terminus, MMO Hall of Fame inductee Wizard101, and the 2007 PC RPG of the Year, The Witcher, for which she was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award in Videogame Writing. She has been invited to the White House and has spoken at conferences around the globe, including the Game Developers Conference, Game Education Summit, SXSW Interactive, Serious Play Conference, and Games For Change Festival.