Welcome

If I ask you to think about video games, what comes to mind? 

Do they appear strange and unfamiliar? 

Or perhaps, they’re something you cross paths with every day? 

Do fond childhood memories surface in your mind for the first time in years? 

Or is it nightmares of ugly fights with your parents over how long you get to stay on the Xbox?

I was raised in a household where gaming was very frowned upon. I was not introduced to the existence of video games until I started school where I learned about them through classmates, after which my parents promptly educated me on the evilness of video games. Remember when you got your first talk about drugs? That’s more or less how our conversation went. However, just like how you didn’t refrain from cracking open a can of dad’s bear when you were 12, my curiosity didn’t hold me back from eventually getting my hands on some video games. They were just some crappy flash knockoffs freely available online, but for me, these colorful and wacky worlds were more than enough to fulfill the sense of carelessness and freedom that was missing from my childhood.

Naturally, my parents eventually found out about my newfound pastime, which of course, resulted in a terrorist-style crossfire. Throughout the following years, the topic of video games would continue to spark conflict after conflict in my family. To be fair, their concerns were not ungrounded–at the time and place I grew up, a lot of the most popular games were covered from top to bottom with microtransactions, violent content, and sometimes even nudity. To some extent, this pattern still exists here and now as games like GTA V become fan-favorite best-sellers. However, what they didn’t know was how to distinguish between good and bad games. Ever since the very beginning of my experiences with video games, I had always stuck with Nintendo’s style, which posts a heavy focus on family-friendliness. However, to the general public, this concept seemed foreign and even absurd. Most people, including my parents, would be completely lost if asked what makes a video game fun and accessible. To them, all video games were created equal under the evilness of Satan and absolutely not something they would ever imagine a family coming together to play.

Perhaps it was the misunderstanding and conflict that inspired me to dig deeper into the topic of game design–did I myself even know what makes a game good? I started to get into coding and game-making in middle school, and throughout high school, I would participate in game projects with teams and on my own. Here’s one of the games I put together and published on Steam. Take a look.

And now we come back to the present. I’m here at UM and getting stomped on by EECS classes like a rotten tomato on a New York sidewalk during rush hour. Video games fade into the background of my life as my flesh and spirit get endlessly tortured by programming assignments, dissolving into both fond and painful memories. However, the writing courses I’ve taken have given me opportunities to share this part of my life with others. Something I’ve always wanted to try is to explain to the average person how to make a good game suitable for everyone…and, at this point, you know exactly why. And here in the genre-bending madness of Writing 220, I have the perfect chance to give it a shot.

My goal is to create something anyone can understand and engage with. During my search, two genres caught my attention. The first one was recipes–they provide instructions for often complex cooking processes but present them in a manner that anyone can follow, which is exactly what I need. Using an analytical essay I wrote about Nintendo’s game design as the source, I turned pieces of key evidence into cooking ingredients and the construction of the argument became the instructions. Try to go along with it yourself, maybe you’ll end up with something delicious…

The other genre I wanted to explore is choose-your-own-adventure books. Most popular in the 1980s, this rather antique genre spices up the plain text by giving readers the option to choose their own plot. The interactive nature of the genre made it a go-to even for people who would never have the patience to sit down and read a regular story, making it a natural pick for my task. It also fits the topic of video games, since it’s very much like a text-based game.

Pick the one that speaks to your tastebuds. Enjoy.