“Mum, you’re not playing a game!”, my eighteen year old daughter exclaimed when she suddenly came into my study. I quickly showed her my Digital Game-based Learning course book and explained that it was a module for my MSc in E-Learning course. I think that sums up my starting point with games – playing games is not something associated with me and I am embarrassed to be caught playing a game!
I was playing PacMan and it was the first time I played that game. I was successful in getting to Level 2 at my first attempt but I did not realise that when I ate a large sphere and the ghosts turned blue that I could try to ‘eat’ them to earn extra points. I only learned that (and the fact that those things were ghosts) by later googling to find out more about the game. [Note: My getting to stage 2 at my first go was just beginners luck. I found it more difficult subsequently!]
I had a harder time with Donkey Kong. The up key did not appear to work when I tried to make the man climb the ladder so I decided that I would have to make a number of points jumping over barrels before I could make it to the next level. But that did not seem to work. I got very frustrated and would have given up if I were not on the course. So again I googled ‘Donkey Kong pattern’ and gathered that the man could go up the ladder. I realised that he had to be positioned exactly in front of the ladder in order to go up it.
Having done some of the initial reading about the definitions of digital or videogames, I realise that I have played some before. In particular, I have played minesweeper on my phone as well as brick???. And I have played solitaire on my laptop. I never thought of them as digital games – mainly because I didn’t play with anyone else – they were solitaire games. (And yes, I just used the word ‘game’.) But I did not go out of my way to get those games – they came with my phone/laptop and I only played them when I was in transit when I was tired of reading. But I enjoyed playing them (as long as no one I knew saw me playing them!).
Keywords: Donkey_Kong, IDGBL10, Pacman
Comments
Yes, I think my daughters had similar reactions when they realised I was going to be playing games for a few weeks, although when my 17 year old daughter saw me playing Runescape, she immediately messaged her game-playing, male friend who decided I was 'cool' and offered to help me progress through the levels. He's also a big World of Warcraft player and has offered to help me when we get to that point of the course.
I was a big player of Pacman in my twenties and I have spend hours playing Solitaire in an attempt to avoid doing my marking when I was a teacher but I've never played Donkey Kong - perhaps I'll try that one next.
Seems in my world you get 'kudos' from playing games so I tend to be pretty open about playing them - I need all the 'coolness' I can get these days!