I Wish I Were the Moon

Lesson Time: 2+ hours

Learning Principles: Co-design, Customization, Information on Demand, System Thinking, Meaning as Action

Videogame Methods: Critical Game Studies, Gaming Discourse Community

A fairly simple place to start in integrating games into the composition classroom would be to use I Wish I Were the Moon. A free and simple to play video game by Daniel Benmergui, it invites numerous angles for critical interpretation.

The gameplay involves is restricted to simple point and click. Players control a frame that they can move around the screen. When they click, it takes a Polaroid picture. If an element is captured within the frame, it can be moved to a different location on the screen. There are a total of 5 movable elements: The boy, girl, boat, bird, and the small moon. Depending on where the player places these elements, different events occur, resulting in 9 different endings. For example, if the boy is moved off the moon onto the boat, the moon drifts up into the sky away from them. If the girl is placed on the moon with the boy, all three sink into the water. Ultimately, the game has a tragic meaning because the boy loves the moon and the girl loves the boy, but very few endings involve all three of them together.

A Possible Lesson Plan

1. Have the students try the game only once (this will take a matter of seconds). After each student has an ending, poll them about what they did and put the data up on the screen. Talk about why they decided to do what they did. (Most will probably move the girl to the boy or vice versa.)

2. Next, let the students go back and explore the game some more. Encourage them to explore all the endings. Don't give them instruction of how to go about this. Some will probably look up a walkthrough at some point (the bonus ending is difficult to discover without help as it is the only one that involves moving the boat). After it seems like the students have explored the game enough (give them some time), discuss what methods people used to find the endings. Likely answers will include the walkthrough, random clicking, and just thinking about it.

3. At this point, students can be given the choice of several brief writing assignments

    • One would be entering into the discourse community and creating a brief walkthrough for one ending with all the appropriate parts. (These can be discovered by researching walkthroughs or faqs online, but parts might include: an introduction/explanation of the game, the controls, and clear step-by-step instructions.)

    • Another assignment in which the students analyzed the procedural rhetoric at play in the game (the capturing of people with pictures and creating various endings to a love story).

    • A third possible assignment would be a creative extrapolation of the events, explaining what happens to the boy and girl after a chosen ending.

Students could post these responses online to begin creating a page dedicated to the game.

4. Additional work/moving forward: According to Benmergui, I Wish I Were the Moon is "inspired on The Distance of the Moon by Italo Calvino." This is a short mythic short story in which the moon is much closer to the earth. The people of Old Qfwfq's village would row out into the sea and use a ladder to climb to the moon. The story involves a love triangle much like that of the game, except, in the end, the girl who loves the boy is stuck on the moon while the boy is stuck on the earth.

Students could first be asked to compare the game to the story and subsequently to analyze one or both.

Strengths of Lesson:

    • Game is very approachable

    • Wide range of writing assignments

    • Easy justification due to connections to literature

Weaknesses of Lesson:

    • Game does not really challenge students

    • Only traditional writing assignments

    • Playfulness and engagement might be limited

Works Cited

Benmergui, Daniel. "I Wish I Were the Moon." Ludomancy.com. Web.

Additional Resource

Calvino, Italo. "The Distance of the Moon."