AbstractsPhilosophy & Theology

Understanding through games: Life Philosophies and Socratic Dialogue in an unusual Medium

by Michael Levall




Institution: Blekinge Institute of Technology
Department:
Year: 2014
Keywords: spelutveckling; digital game development; game development; dialogue; debate; life philosophies; affect; interpretable design
Record ID: 1338821
Full text PDF: http://www.bth.se/fou/cuppsats.nsf/6753b78eb2944e0ac1256608004f0535/fc074ae6a78f4e21c1257d2c0046a57e?OpenDocument


Abstract

Games as a medium is about to change, and with this change comes a search for themes outside the normal range of what is seen as acceptable in the medium. In this paper we, Michael Levall and Carl Boström, use debate and Socratic dialogue to portray the value of looking at a topic from several different angles, with the topic of choice for this project being life philosophies. During production, we create a game which sets out to affect its player even after he or she has finished playing it, possibly teaching the player the value of looking at a problem from different perspectives. Playtests conclude that in order to affect the player, the game should be catered to the player’s skill in interpreting games, and interpretable design can be used to affect how influenced the player is by the game.