(Hush, a project created using Values @ Play cards)

After the energy and interaction of the pre-conference workshop, the official day one of Games for Change seemed somewhat more sedate; although it was cool to see even more star power arrive– your Juuls and Prenskys and whathaveyou. Some of the day’s highlights for me were the USCD students’ presentation of Hush, which visibly affected more than a few (and I still maintain– you need to play the game to appreciate how well the A/V works with the gameplay). I was trying to remember what about the game bugged me the first time I saw it, and I think I remember now it was not the core game itself, but the heavy-handed opening and closing pieces. They’re not THAT bad to be fair, but on a game so close to being note-perfect…

I gave my wee ‘TED’ talk in the early afternoon, and although a talk that short seems uber-shallow (I had no visuals due to my luggage circumstances, but in the end, I know this saved me time), the response was positive, and I did manage to sneak in some troublemaking questions about what is simulatable, what you’re documenting in a game, and the loose way we use ‘real’ when it comes to games. And shopping-list a range of examples to boot.

The keynote was (-) one Henry Jenkins (due to illness) and (+) one Eric Zimmerman; and while I’m not sure how this changed the dynamic exactly, I can say the play between Jim Gee and Eric worked well– with Eric acting as a bit of a cheerful wet-blanket of sorts (a role which I’ve taken on myself on occasion) in grounding some of Gee’s more bold claims about games and learning. In fact, I think Zimmerman reiterated two key messages: games are not necessarily better at everything, and that’s OK, and assessing ’social change’ is maddeningly difficult– and probably unnecessary. Both points speak against a really instrumentalist view of games that sometimes runs a bit wild at this sort of event.

Afterwards, we had a brief and lovely reception and game showcase, followed by an outing I attended despite my ultra-early flight out (as was noted, I am weak willed and need only be paired with an instigator ;-) After a couple of glasses of wine I somehow ended up trying to explain a re-envisioning of values ‘transmission’ that took into account largely unreflective play…badly! I laud every brave soul who tried to make heads or tales of any of it.

Having recovered the power of articulation, the general idea was: first, questioning whether the game environment was rule based at all– the point being to question the ‘Oh I do this,’ ‘OK I can do that’ model of figuring out a gamespace as being somewhat related to type of game, but also atypical. Really, do we think that? Or do we assume we must think that? Isn’t our first course of action to just DO it, and only start puzzling it out if there is a conflict? Even so, isn’t it rare that we articulate this ‘in our heads’ at all?

The context was in the way we experience values in gameplay. If our envisioning of this process necessitates reflection and articulation, is this a good model? This is not to say we don’t still hit upon these values on an arational level in due course– perhaps more ambiguously. But, as (Richard the Naughty Dog fellow) was quick to point out, there are, ideally, a wealth of other reinforcing representations in a game supporting these messages. Yes! And this is such a better frame I think for that interplay than a modern-formalist poetics of ‘perfect union between form and content’ that seems to be largely positioned as an issue of aesthetics.

Wait– if it serves a very real purpose, isn’t that rather… instrumental? Damn it!