Search for Topics
Using games to create positive social value is one of the aims of my postgraduate Games Design degree. Therefore I set several themes related to it and analysed which one was more appropriate.
Q1. How to make functional/serious games fun?
In China, Tencent Games Dreaming Plan has launched a number of serious games. Examples include Seeing, and Dark Shadows in the Long Sky. Seeing is designed to give normal players a taste of everyday life as a visually impaired player – by tapping on a cane to judge the way forward. Shadow of the Long Sky, on the other hand, is a game made for visually impaired players, where the player chooses to dodge a missile based on the direction it is coming from.
The serious games currently on the market are highly targeted, mainly for science, and have a monotonous gameplay. Only a few games are interesting, while most are boring. This makes them accessible only to those who are interested in serious games and therefore the audience is small and not well advertised. I hope that by looking at various types of creative games and combining them with serious games, I can make serious games more fun to further their purpose.
Q2. How to use games to improve social and environmental issues
I made a light game based on social media app when I was working on my undergraduate portfolio. It was designed to help players exercise and also to help sell fruit in poor farming areas. Some famous organisations such as NASA and (United Nations) have also made games related to environmental conservation. I hope to explore the role games can play in this, in conjunction with research in sustainability or other disciplines.
Q3. How to add educational meaning to commercial games
Games, with their unique interactive nature, are more suitable for educational use than traditional media. There are already a number of games on the market for medical education, aviation education, physics education and other directions. Exploring the consistency of these and concluding a workable solution can help games realise their educational value more efficiently.
Choose a Topic
All these themes have their limitations and the feedback from the first pitch: ‘How to use games to improve social and environmental issues?‘ is a more appropriate one. I will revise it further in my subsequent research to better fit the theme I am exploring.