Systemic Racism in Idealized Fiction

In this article, game writer Sande Chen explains how idealized fiction can send an unintended message by ignoring racial injustices.

Earlier this year, I was able to attend a remarkable WGA, East Webinar about the report, "Normalizing Injustice: The Dangerous Misrepresentations That Define Television's Scripted Crime Genre," which explains how racial injustice is still reinforced even though diversity may be represented in these television crime shows.

As was pointed out in the Webinar, it's like racism has been erased in these shows. On the show, it's commonplace for a 65 year-old black woman to be a judge or hold a high-ranking position, but what's concerning is that none of the institutionalized racial injustice is ever addressed. These minority characters are inherent supporters of the system.

I found this line of thought eye-opening and intriguing. Others wondered if viewers or players would want to think about issues of inequality and discrimination while consuming their favorite media.

However, we know that the influence of media is important and as writers, we can and are often asked to depict a more enlightened society. The impetus to show diverse characters in our stories is not only to make things interesting, but also, to break stereotypes. We've seen it in TV remakes like Roswell, where the formerly all-white character list has disappeared. I think the writers did a good job of incorporating the new ethnic and sexual identities and blending them with topically relevant issues like immigration. They didn't do a cut and paste, like I described in the blog post, "Interchangeable He and She," where the hypothetical solution was to simply change pronouns.

My feeling is that replacing a male, white judge character with a 65 year-old black woman can feel like cut and paste. We should want more. We should be curious about her background. What were her struggles to get to where she is now? It's not about harping about social change, but just accepting that this character might have had a harder time than just applying and going to law school.

Sande Chen is a writer and game designer whose work has spanned 10 years in the industry. Her credits include 1999 IGF winner Terminus, 2007 PC RPG of the Year The Witcher, and Wizard 101. She is one of the founding members of the IGDA Game Design SIG.

Moving Beyond the Hero's Journey

In this article, game writer Sande Chen delves into the audience shift from the Hero's Journey to the collective journey.

I've just finished listening to the June 3, 2020 StoryFit Webinar, "Character Research for the New Age of Storytelling: Using Data and Media Psychology to Make Meaningful Stories," and I've never been so excited to report on a panel. Many thanks to Juliana Loh for pointing me towards this fascinating story research panel.

I have heard of the collective journey before but the way Jeff Gomez of Starlight Runner Entertainment expressed his points made this evolution of storytelling so relevant to today's outlook and environment. Plus, research shows that programming following the collective journey framework has done far better with audiences than narratives based on the Hero's Journey, forcing companies to see how they can retune their story properties.

According to Gomez, audiences are moving away from stories about a singular hero who can save the world. Instead, they care about a collective journey, one that reflects multiple perspectives. The Hero's Journey, already criticized for its masculine leanings and focus on external conflicts, just doesn't reflect modern sensibilities. Nowadays and especially with the ongoing protests, people are more keyed into communities. They don't need to search for a wise, old mentor. They can just reach out and find mentors on social media. In a collective journey, as Gomez says, "No one is coming to save us. We have to save ourselves."

What does this mean for our narratives? Instead of thinking of one strand of story, we can think about story worlds, or networked stories. Our game worlds can be and often are story worlds. The collective journey encompasses all of those stories. Gomez pointed to the film Arrival as an excellent example of the collective journey.

The StoryFit panel as a whole provided story research about character networks and explained why character relationships are a crucial component in getting audiences to care about characters.  

Sande Chen is a writer and game designer whose work has spanned 10 years in the industry. Her credits include 1999 IGF winner Terminus, 2007 PC RPG of the Year The Witcher, and Wizard 101. She is one of the founding members of the IGDA Game Design SIG.

GamerJibe How to Break Into the Gaming Industry Panel

In this panel, Hitmarker Managing Director Richard Huggan, Games Provision Manager Bradley Austin, and game designer Sande Chen dispense advice for aspiring eSports athletes and game developers interested in entry level positions and remote opportunities in the gaming industry.

This one-hour long panel titled, "How to Break Into the Gaming Industry," was streamed during GamerJibe's May 2020 Career Fest for Students and Gamers and covered a variety of topics including social media presence, networking, portfolios, development bootcamps, and university degrees. Learn what sectors are growing and how to get involved in the game industry.

Do you have to be a gamer to be in the game industry?

Social Distancing Game For Children

Apologies for not updating the blog! My area of the world is still in quarantine, but we are hoping to reopen soon. During this hiatus, I participated in panels at LudoNarraCon: A Digital Festival Celebrating Narrative Games and GamerJibe's May 2020 Career Fest for Students and Gamers. That event is still going on, if you want to hop in with an avatar and meet recruiters in a 3D world. Very neat!

I have been at home with a kid and like many parents, am wondering how to explain this new reality to my child. I've enjoyed the Kids' Edition of NBC Nightly News, but here's a way to explain the whys of social distancing in a cute, browser-based game called, Can You Save the World? 

Created especially for children by psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman from the University of  Hertfordshire, the free game has racked up more than 10,000 playthroughs in its first two days of release. The premise is simple: the player walks down the street while keeping away from other people, collecting face coverings, and avoiding sneezes. The score tallies up the estimated lives saved.

If you want to check out the gameplay, it's here:

As Professor Wiseman says in a BBC interview, "you're learning through doing, which is far more memorable than another doom and gloom message." That is exactly the promise of game-based learning!

Sande Chen is a writer and game designer whose work has spanned 10 years in the industry. Her credits include 1999 IGF winner Terminus, 2007 PC RPG of the Year The Witcher, and Wizard 101. She is one of the founding members of the IGDA Game Design SIG.

Fight the coronavirus by playing this game!

In this article, game designer Sande Chen reports on the game industry's efforts to combat the coronavirus and solve the logistical fallout from the pandemic. 

As industry trade shows like E3, GDC, and SXSW are canceled due to concerns over COVID 19 and game production delays are occurring over supply disruptions, the researchers at University of Washington responsible for the game FoldIt have released a new puzzle aimed at halting the spread of the coronavirus.

Such games are known as citizen science games because members of the public, as citizen scientists, can help scientific efforts. There are many instances, as in the game FoldIt, where humans are much better at finding solutions than computers.

As schools and colleges go online and employees work remotely, I hope that we will be able to see more virtual conferences such as not.GDC, happening at the same week as the canceled event.  Indie developers affected by the cancellations and the inability to pitch games can find assistance at the GDC Relief Fund.

The IGDA Game Design SIG had been slated to have a roundtable at the Game Developers Conference this year entitled "Designing Non-Toxic Communities (Presented by the IGDA)" and a social meeting. We hope that we can discuss this issue on the IGDA Twitch channel in the coming months.

There is also an effort to provide a back-up plan for the US election should quarantine be needed in November. If you'd like to participate, sign up at Save the Election.

Sande Chen is a writer and game designer whose work has spanned 10 years in the industry. Her credits include 1999 IGF winner Terminus, 2007 PC RPG of the Year The Witcher, and Wizard 101. She is one of the founding members of the IGDA Game Design SIG.

Your Opinions Wanted on New York Regents Exams

In this article, game designer Sande Chen wonders if game-based learning and assessment can replace or supplement standardized tests.

The standard in assessment for high school students in New York, the Regents exams, are up for review this month. Educators, parents, students, and the general public can give their feedback on whether New York should change its graduation requirements at meetings in March across the state. Those who can't make the meetings can offer their opinion on the online survey here. Of concern is whether or not the New York Regents exams should be replaced or modified.

Do the Regents exams even reflect the 21st-Century skills students need? Some attendees at a recent meeting wondered if portfolios or projects can be submitted in lieu of standardized tests, but how can these be fairly assessed? Others wanted students to be more aware of the global community and civic participation, pointing out that compared to students of other countries, American students are sorely lacking. Most agreed that a change is needed.

The American education system is heavily invested in standardized tests. Faced with preparation for the onslaught of standardized tests, high school teachers tend to avoid game-based learning.

However, game-based learning can provide the answers on how to assess project-based curriculum. Though many educational games compromise and include quizzes or assignments, a well-designed learning game should be able to assess understanding through completion. What that means is that a student needs to learn the required material in order to complete the game.

Moreover, if the project is done through a simulation or a game, it can be more objectively compared to an ideal since the program will judge each project by the same guidelines. Imagine, if you will, a game like Kerbal Space Program, in which students will build rockets. Some students will have rockets that succeed and some students won't. Those that don't succeed will be inclined to build and build rockets until they have better rockets.

If the educator wants to highlight civics or the global community, a game that encourages social responsibility or citizen science can be chosen.

Through game-based learning, students learn about systems thinking. They learn to adapt to changing circumstances. They aren't memorizing facts to do well on tests. The skills they learn through game-based learning will help them in the workplace.

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.

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.