Below is a list of mostly browser-based videogames. In your group, “skim” these games and find a handful to explore in greater depth. Discuss their mechanics, their “fiction” (as Juul puts it), what they explicitly represent, and what they more suggestively evoke. As a group, toss around some ideas about what players might “do” with these games.
In your lab report, cluster a few of these games together and, using Bogost as your inspiration, make an argument about what these specific games can “do.” Go beyond the conventional uses of videogames (fun, competition, teaching). Make sure your category is distinctive from Bogost’s 20 things. You don’t have to—indeed, you should avoid—just sticking with the games and categories your group came up with in class.
The lab report should be about 500 words and shared with me as a Google Doc by the end of the day on Monday, October 3.
The Games
- I Wish I Were the Moon
- Small Worlds
- First Person Tetris
- Phone Story
- Flow
- Immortall
- Stop Disasters
- Alz
- Spent
- Flight to Freedom
- Obéissance
- A Way To Go
- Don’t Look Back
- Breaksout
- Realistic Kissing Simulator
- Let’s Play: The Shining
- The Sun Does Not Exist
- Lullaby for Heartsick Spacer
- Hexagon
- We the Giants
- Zeno of Elea
- Nite Fite
- Terms and Conditions
- To Build a Better Mousetrap
- Let’s Play: Let’s Play: Ancient Greek Punishment: Art Edition Edition
- Striptease (download required)
- All the Better to See You (download required)
- The Lake (download, Windows only)