Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 14 seconds
(Thanks to all who gave feedback before Nov 5. Students are now working on their final drafts)
This semester, I extended the milestones of my students’ digital narratives games project into 5 phases (described fully here), with a new phase that is explicitly centered on “research”. The games are choose-your-own-path narratives that give the player agency, while helping promote awareness of a cause the students care about – or, if they’re really good, promoting empathy. I’m blown away by some of these. The research phase really enriched them, I think. Students could either research by reflecting on their personal experience, or interview people around them, or do secondary research – depending on what made sense for their games.
So here is the list of games, in the order in which they were submitted to me (so please don’t only give feedback on the first few – and obviously no one is being asked to give feedback on ALL – just whichever ones appeal to you). Hopefully, you will find something in each game to praise, while also offering suggestions for improvement in the next phase.
OK HERE GOES:
- Stuck in the Loop (Farah and Toqa)
- Dilemmas Game (Youssef F)
- Toxic Masculinity (Ihab)
- Autism Game (Noura)
- Thinking of the Unthinkable (Jassica/Mayar)
- University Student Stress (Khaled)
- Passing Information (Nouran and Yasmine)
- Second-hand Depression (Zeina and Hoda)
- Losing Parents (Mai)
- A Mile in Their Shoe (Akram)
- Single Mom (Nada)
- On Sports in Egypt (Mariam)
- Life of a Lion (Loay)
- Driving in Egypt (Ahmed)
Hi Maha I’ve given some feedback on two but with others the googledocs links in their posts just aren’t working for me. Your students are doing such interesting work so I’d love to see the rest!
Will take a look later today or tomorrow
I tried playing the Autism game and I loved it! The idea is really nice and so is the way the game is presented. It gave me a good idea about the struggles that a mother of an autistic child goes through and I also learned a few things about autism.
My only suggestion is to add positive feedback to more of the options, as many of the choices led to negative outcomes.
Other than that, great work Noura!
Thanks Yasmin. I’m passing this on to Noura :))
Have left review comments for 5 games and one about access difficulties for the 6th – live like a lion
For the Dilemmas game, I wonder if this is the first draft, how will be the final version like? I truly enjoyed it! Youssef has put great effort into the details like the music selected, homepage background, the scenes, and the ending. The only thing I don’t understand is the heading “Experimental Music archives”. How is it related to the game? And when I clicked on this title to find an explanation, it took me to the homepage where there is another title “Annotations on Engine failure” I also didn’t get it. Are these titles explain the background of the game or refer to something else? Good job, Youssef!
I have commented on 4 and will try to review some more. I mistakenly posted one here, but the rest were posted on their blogs. All the best!
Thanks so much!!