- Finally, it is time for us to bring together everything we have learned in our examination of the building blocks, with some of the critical theoretical perspectives we’ve learned about in the videos. Your game analysis shouldn’t use every single building block or detail you’ve gathered in earlier assignments – that’s way too much information for an assignment of this length. Narrow it down to focus on the significance of one or two elements of your game. Does a particular mechanic make an argument that sets this game apart? Give us some context on what makes this mechanic special, and what meaning it conveys in the game. In order to complete this assignment, you will need to first read Chapter 6 of the Fernández-Vara textbook
- You have the option to submit your final analysis as either a traditional paper or a video essay.
- A final paper should be approximately 6-8 pages in length, double-spaced in 12-pt font. Papers over 10 pages in length will not be accepted – you need to be concise!
- For either assignment type include a bibliography and a ludography (citation for any games mentioned in the analysis). Your citations will probably include some of the texts from your assignment 1 annotated bibliography, but can also include additional sources. You should have at minimum 3 academic citations, but likely more – we’re interested in meaningful engagement with other people’s ideas and concepts. You’re also quite welcome to cite the course videos (see the citation guide for course videos on the course home page), but if they mention a specific academic concept in the videos, I’d encourage you to consult the source text as well (eg. if the course video references Miguel Sicart’s definition of game mechanics, check out Sicart’s article).
- For either assignment type, your bibliography does not count towards the final page count.
- Fernández-Vara lists several different types of game analyses that you could undertake with the building blocks. You are not limited to these types – any type of critical analysis is allowed, as long as you are drawing on the building blocks and theories we’ve covered in the course. However, in this course we are focused on academic analysis of games, not journalistic ones, so your analysis should not follow the ‘journalistic review’ guidelines she provides. We are also not focusing here on writing a ‘personal account’ of our relationship with a video game – although autoethnography can be a legitimate form of critical reading, it has not been the focus of our course. While you are encouraged to include yourself, your positionality, and your experiences of the game in your final analysis, it should not be the primary focus.
This is an instructor-graded assignment worth 30% of your total grade.