Author: STEPHANIE

Trivia Crack is a mobile app game. It was launched in 2013 and was modeled after Trivial Pursuit. The game allows the user to play against friends and strangers around the world. There are six different categories: Entertainment, Art, Sports, History, Science, and Geography. The player will spin a wheel that determines what category of question they will be asked. If they answer correctly, they will earn an icon representing the category they got correct. The first player to earn all six category icons wins the game. This app allows players to continue socializing with friends they may not be able to interact with in person. A player can use their Facebook friends or search by username in order to play games with people they know. This option allows players to maintain a constant social communications with friends over long distances. Players also have the option of choosing a random opponent, in which they will be placed in a game with someone from any location in the world.

This week, Alexa, Emily, and I will be leading a discussion on emotions and gaming. We will be looking at how games are able to manipulate players into feeling certain emotions. One genre that does this is horror games. They are able to use different aspects of play in the game to make the player feel anxiety and fear. One horror game that does this is the PS4 game Until Dawn. In until dawn the player controls a handful of different character in a snow cabin who are being hunter by monsters. The game creates anxiety and fear in the player a few ways. One way is that the game implements jump scares so the player is always waiting for things to pop out at random and scare them. Another way they game designers create anxiety is by requiring players to quickly hit button on the controller. This will usually happen when a character is being chased by a monster. The player will have a few seconds to hit a series of control buttons or else their character will die. This creates anxiety in the player because they are always waiting for this to happen and are pressured to quickly hit the correct buttons. They also use sound effects to their advantage in the same way that horror film do, in that the music will get faster the closer you get to a jumpscare.

Assassin’s Creed is a video game series that combines action and history. The main storylines and characters a fictional. However, each game contains real life historical figures and historical events. For example, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is set in Victorian Era London. Famous historical figures that you interact with are Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, Alexander Graham Bell, and Queen Victoria. A game like this is an example of the way a player can learn from a video game. Players get to enjoy the action and adventure of the main storyline and topic. The side missions focus on true historical events with true historical figures. Games like this allow its players to play through while also learning about history. For example, in one side mission, the player has to track the victims of Jack the Reaper. In another, the player has to collect pieces for Alexander Graham Bell, and Bell uses the pieces to build the telegraph. The story also has an accurate map of London and includes all the major landmarks which allows the players to learn the geography of a location they may have never been in. For example, the player needs to climb Big Ben and gets to go inside Westminster Abbey.

In the article “The Rhetoric of Video Games” by Ian Bogost they start by talking about the game Animal Crossing. It seems that the audience for this game is younger kids. They kids seem to be learning basic life lessons and skills by playing this game. For example, Bogost talked about how his five year old son learned how to save up money to pay of a mortgage by playing the game. I’ve never played Animal Crossing, but I have played the Sims computer games and I feel like similar lessons could be learned from it. For example, in the Sims, unless you use cheat codes, you have to earn enough money by working to pay for a house and food and other items you want to buy. You even have taxes that you have to pay every week in the game. Games like these seemingly introduce children to the idea of savings and much more.