“What are the consequential choices people face that a player can get and understand and lead them to think about it in their own life or to question their own experience or experience of their elders,” she said. There’s been a lot of reflection and conversation among developers on those overarching topics — like opportunity and advancement — versus getting rooted in the community.
Another framework the game’s development team wants to focus on is the illusion of choice — where games, like reality, don’t always take into account players’ motivations for the decisions they make. given. This is a concept that sometimes frustrates players as games are such an interactive medium, but in Dot .’s homepageNot having all the “right” choices presented in front of you is exactly the problem.
As with all video games, “someone else designed the system without your input. Someone made the system for you, and you play it and then whatever result you get, that’s what you get, sounds a lot like the American housing system,” said Rosales.
Luisa Dantas, project manager at Rise-Home Stories, talked about gaming at this year’s SXSW, during a panel discussing how games and gaming technology can be a tool to combat inequality structural equality. Dantas said the game’s audience should be Black and brown, as housing inequality affects them the most.
With this projected audience, Dantas understands that these players start the game knowing the system is rigged and that they are playing with a limited and stymied set of choices. Those narrative decisions reflect systemic inequalities that limit access to safe and affordable housing for all but the richest in many communities. In addition to these limited options, players must think about how their choices will affect their neighborhood, not just focusing on the needs of Dot and her family.
“There is also a direct criticism of the idea of this kind of toxic reward system,” says Dantas. “This idea of individualism assumes that it is all about your personal responsibility and your personal choices. And if you give only the set of correct choices, x, y and z will happen. “In the game, as in reality, sometimes you can do things ‘right’, and the community is no better, because so many factors are beyond your control or influence.
Rosales describes Dot .’s homepage as a “value-driven game”.
Courtesy of Rise-Home Stories
