Title | Magic, Myth, & Meaning in Game Design |
Presenter(s) |
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Time | Thursday, October 13, 9:00a-10:00a |
Location | MSU Union Ballroom |
Format | Keynote |
Description | We are facing many social, cultural, economic and environmental crises, and with mental health issues rising worldwide, these crises are also internalized. Instead of the constant paralyzing dread, can we instead imagine, create, and connect ourselves to a future that is worth living in, and where we as humans are worth saving? What can we, as game researchers, contribute to the design of this future, so its uncertainty unfolds in a way that is not only sustainable but regenerative? How can we work - from a theoretical, practical, and boundary-crossing perspective - with games as these liminal possibility spaces, to explore and envision new ways of thinking, acting and being; possibility spaces in which we can investigate what has meaning for us and how we can live in alignment with our deepest values? As storyteller and mythologist Martin Shaw put it: "Bad storytellers make spells. Great storytellers break spells." How can we work with games as the mythical and ritualistic media of the 21st century to understand the spells we as individuals, cultures and communities are under and do our part to break them?
Conceptually, this collection of shimmering ideas are slowly forming and coalescing over several years of shared work, informed by existential psychotherapy in so far as its starting points are the fundamental questions of "meaning", "identity", "death" and "isolation". Our work has courted myth and ritual as symbolic forms of communication that connect us deeply to our unconscious and re-establish communication between our rational and feeling selves and how we can harness myth and ritual for the design of games that contribute to a meaningful life. The journey has led deeper and deeper into recognizing the need for inner alignment with personal values as the foundation for a sense of connectedness and oneness with oneself, others and the environment. It has been profoundly inspired by the work of Monica Sharma and Karen O'Brien on transformational leadership for sustainability. It has opened the door to an inquiry into the question of how to design games for empathy, connection, reflection, and the ability to change our minds. Building on our initial work some years ago at DiGRA on an existential, transformational framework for game design, this talk presents our latest thinking on these subjects, and also offers a challenge to the design community, asking how we can focus not on broad, surface level outcomes, but on deeply personal, individual and lasting change through games and playable media. |