For years I have given folks that party line that I don’t “teach” writing, but rather that I facilitate writing. And, of course, it’s true even if it does sound damned pretentious. You really can’t teach someone how to write. You can model it for them and give them feedback, but in the end people learn to write through practice.
I say this to say that more and more it is becoming apparent to me that the same is true of video games. Especially after trying to teach my mother to play a console game over Christmas break. My mom owns a 3DS and Professor Layton (that I’m not sure she has ever really played a game on) and she has played Mario Kart 8 with us (quite badly I might add), but those are games and consoles that require very little dexterity. This Christmas I decided that my mom would/should love the narrative heavy TellTale games. So one night I fired up the first episode of Game of Thrones (never the Walking Dead because Shhhhhhh… she is terrified of zombies). For the next hour or so I watched as she got through the first 15-20 minutes of the game and got killed no less than a zillion time. Hacked to death, knife through the neck, arrow to the knee, you name it. She died in more ways than I thought possible even when the game helped her out by ignoring the fact that she missed cues and mercifully (or not) let her live.
I warned her of upcoming blows and told her which buttons or triggers to push over and over again, but it never did help. She just didn’t have it and I couldn’t teach it to her. It is something that can only come with practice. Some might call it instinct, twitch reflexes, or muscle memory. No matter what you call it, it is something that you can only get with practice. I can give her feedback, but only time and practice is going to lead her to the video gaming promised land. I have almost 40 years on her in terms of my twitch responses to visual stimuli in a video game and I know my Xbox controller like the back of my hand (and I have the history of RSIs to prove it!).
So while I think that I am a pretty good teacher, this experience has shown me nothing if not that I have a lot to learn/remember about teaching in a games based course. As a co-op gamer and a game studies instructor I have to remember to be patient when it comes to working with folks with little to no gaming experience and it has given me cause to rethink my classroom pedagogical practices and expectations as well. So as the semester gears up to start next week I am thinking about games and interfaces that offer the same narrative and interactive experiences as AAA console games, but don’t require the kind of experience that folks like me take for granted.
So to my mom (and her oft dead squire) I say Thank You and I’m Sorry. Thanks for the long, frustrating session that helped me to feel what you must have been feeling at the same time but for different reasons and sorry for not realizing earlier that I was being a bit (ok more than a bit) of a privileged ass. Come play with me again and I promise to do better next time or you have my permission to bonk me on the head with the controller.
