Playing Emotion
Now ask students: Do games sometimes make us feel certain emotions?
Prompting questions:
How do you feel when you’re winning a game?
How do you feel when you’re losing?
Do you sometimes feel angry at other people because of a game?
Do you sometimes feel closer to other people because of a game?
After students have discussed this question for a few minutes, read them this quote from game designer Will Wright (best known as the designer of The Sims):
“I want a player to feel surprised: ‘Wow, I made this thing!’ Then, because you feel ownership over it, you start feeling things like pride—or even guilt if you run the situation badly.
People talk about how games don’t have the emotional impact of movies. I think they do—they just have a different palette. I never felt pride, or guilt, watching a movie.”
Now ask students: Have they ever felt proud of something they did in a game?
Remind them that “games” includes sports!
Have they ever felt guilty?
Ask: What other emotions are found in games’ emotional “palette”?
If you have already delivered the lesson First Person, remind students of the game “The Tale of the ADHD Dinosaur.”
If you have not delivered that lesson, give them time to either play the game or watch a gameplay video (either should take about five minutes.) Alternately, you can play the game collectively as a class on a digital whiteboard or digital projector.
What emotions does that game make you feel?
Why do you think the designer wanted you to feel those emotions?
Highlight the importance of frustration and humiliation to the designer’s experiences with ADHD.
Next, have students access the student chapter Playing Emotions or display it on a digital whiteboard or digital projector. Have students guess what emotion each game was originally trying to make players feel, then flip the cards for the answer.
Point out that while some of these games no longer inspire the same emotions (and in some cases, like Monopoly, have taken on the opposite of their original meanings), they demonstrate that games can be used to make players feel emotions that are not tied to winning or losing the game.