Gaming for understanding Brenda Brathwaite

now when we think of games there’s all

kinds of things maybe you’re ticked off

or maybe you’re looking forward to a new

game you’ve been up too late playing a

game all these things happen to me but

we think about games a lot of times who

think about stuff like this first-person

shooter so the big what we would call

triple-a games or maybe you’re a

Facebook game player this is one my

partner and I worked on maybe you play

Facebook games and that’s what we’re

making right now it’s a lighter form a

game maybe you think about the

tragically boring board games that hold

us hostage and Thanksgiving situations

this would be one of those tragically

boring board games that you can figure

out or or maybe you’re in your living

room you know playing with the Wii with

the kids or something like that and you

know there’s this whole range of games

and that’s very much what I think about

I make my living from games I’ve been

lucky enough to do this since I was 15

which also qualifies as I’ve never

really had a real job but we think about

games is fun and that’s completely

reasonable but let’s just think about

this so this one here this is the 1980

Olympics no no where you guys were but I

was in my living room it was practically

a religious event and this is when the

Americans beat the Russians and this was

yes it was technically a game hockey is

a game but really was this a game

I mean people cried I’ve never seen my

mother cry like that at the end of at

the end of Monopoly and and so this was

just an amazing experience or you know

if anybody here is from Boston so when

the Boston Red Sox won the World Series

after I believe a 351 years when they

won the World Series it was amazing I

happen to be living in Springfield at

the time and the best part of it was is

that in the book you would close the the

woman’s door in the bathroom and I

remember seeing gos socks and I thought

really or the houses you’d come out

because every game while I think almost

every game went into overtime right so

we’d be outside and all the other lights

are on in the whole block and kids like

the attendance was down in school and

kids weren’t going to school but it was

it’s okay that’s the Red Sox right I

mean there’s Education and then there’s

the Red Sox and we know where they’re

stacked so this was an amazing

experience and again yes it was a game

but they didn’t write newspaper articles

people didn’t say you know really I can

die now because

Red Sox won and many people did so games

means something more to us absolutely

means something more so now just this is

an abrupt transition here there was

three years where I actually did have a

real job sort of I was the head of a

college department teaching games so

again it was sort of a real job and I

just got to talk about making them as

opposed to making them and I would said

it did or part of the job of it when

you’re a chair of a department is to eat

and I did that very well and so I’m I

did it dinner with this guy and called

Zig Jackson this is a Zig in this

photograph this is also one of his IG’s

photographs he’s a photographer and he

go through all around the country taking

pictures of himself and you know you can

see here he’s got zigs Indian

Reservation and this particular shot is

one this is one of the more traditional

shots this is a rain dancer and this is

one of my favorite shots here so you can

look at this and maybe you’ve even seen

things like this this is an expression

of culture right and this is actually

from his degradation series it was most

fascinating to me about this series it’s

just look at that little boy there can

you imagine now let’s think we can see

that that’s a traditional Native

American I just want to change that

guy’s race just imagine if that’s a

black guy so honey come here let’s get

your picture with the black guy right

like seriously nobody would do this it

baffles the mind in so zyg being Indian

likewise it baffles his mind his

favorite photograph oh my favourite

photograph of his which I don’t have in

here is Indian taking picture of white

people taking pictures of Indians so I

happen to be a dinner with this

photographer and he was talking with

another photographer about a shooting

that had occurred and it was on an

Indian Reservation he’d taken his camera

up there too to photograph him but when

he got there he discovered he couldn’t

do it he just couldn’t capture the

picture he and and so they were taking a

talking back and forth about this

question do you take the picture or not

and that was fascinating to me as a game

designer because it never occurs to me

like should I make the game about this

difficult topic or not because we just

make things that are fun or you know

will make you feel fear or make it you

know be that visceral excitement but

every other medium does it so this is my

kid this is Mesa and when she was seven

years old she came home from school and

day and like I do every single day I

asked her what you do today so she said

we talked about the middle

now this was a big moment mazes dad is

black and and I knew this day was coming

I wasn’t expecting it at seven I don’t

know why but I wasn’t anyway so I asked

her how do you feel about that so she

proceeded to tell me and so any of you

who are parents will recognize the bingo

buzzwords here so the ship start in

England they come down from England they

go to Africa they go across the ocean

that’s the Middle Passage part they come

to America where the slaves are sold

she’s telling me but Abraham Lincoln was

elected president and then he passed the

Emancipation Proclamation and now

they’re free pause for about ten seconds

can i play a game mommy and I thought

that that’s it right like and so the you

know thing this is the middle passage

this is an incredibly significant event

and she’s treating it like some

basically some black people went on a

cruise is more or less how it sounds to

her and so to me I wanted more value in

this so when she asked if she could play

a game I said yes and so I happened to

have all of these little pieces I’m a

game designer so I have this stuff

sitting around my house so I said yeah

you can play a game and I give her a

bunch of these and they tell her to

paint them in different families these

are pictures amazing when she was god I

still chokes me up seeing these if she

she’s painting her little family so they

grab a bunch of them and I put him on a

boat this was the boat Lee was made

quickly obviously and so the basic gist

of it is I grabbed a bunch of family

since she’s like mommy but you forgot

the pink baby and you forgot the blue

daddy and you forgot all these other

things and she says they want to go and

I said honey no they don’t want to go

this is the Middle Passage nobody wants

to go in the Middle Passage so she gave

me a look that only a daughter of a game

designer would give a mother and as

we’re going across the ocean following

these rules she realizes that she’s

rolling pretty high and she says to me

we’re not gonna make it and she realizes

you know we don’t have enough food and

so she asked what to do and I I say well

we can either remember she’s seven and

we can either put some people in the

water or we can hope that they don’t get

sick and we make it to the other side

and she like you know just the look on

her face came over and she said I -

after a month of this is Black History

Month right after a month she says to me

did this really happen and I said yes

and so she said so if I

out of the woods this is her brother and

sister if I came out of the woods Avalon

and Donovan might be gone yes but I get

to see them in America no but what if I

saw them you know what couldn’t we stay

together no so daddy could be gone yes

and she was fascinated by this and she

started to cry and I started to cry and

her father started to cry and now we’re

all crying he didn’t expect to come home

from work to the Middle Passage but

there it goes

and so so he made this game and she she

got it she got it because she spent time

with these people it was an abstract

stuff in a brochure in a movie and so it

was just an incredibly powerful

experience this is the the game which

I’ve ended up calling the new world

because I like the phrase I don’t think

the new world felt to new world the

exciting to the people who were brought

over on slave ships but when this

happened I saw the whole planet I was so

excited it was like I’ve been making

games for 20-some years and then I

decided to do it get it again my history

is Irish so this is a game called Shia

Khan lot it’s peace be with you it’s the

entire history of my family in a single

game I made another game called train I

was making a series of six games that

covered difficult topics and if you’re

gonna cover a difficult topic this is

one you need to cover and I’ll let you

figure out what that’s about on your own

and I also made a game about the middle

the the Trail of Tears

this is a game with 50,000 individual

pieces I was crazy when I decided to

start it but I’m in the middle of it now

it’s the same thing I’m hoping that I’ll

teach culture through these games and

the one I’m working on right now which

is because I’m right in the middle of it

and these for some reason choke me up

like crazy is a game called Mexican

kitchen workers and it originally it was

a math problem more or less like here’s

the economics of illegal immigration and

the more I learned about the Mexican

culture my partner is Mexican the more I

learned that you know for many for all

of us food is a basic need but it is

obviously with Mexicans too but it’s

much more than that it’s an expression

of love it’s an expression of a totally

choking up way more than I thought I

look away from the picture it’s an

expression of beauty it’s how they say

they love you it’s how they say they

care and you can’t hear somebody talking

about their Mexican grandmother without

saying food in the first sentence and so

to me this beautiful culture this

beautiful expression is something that I

want to capture through games and so

games for a change

changes how we see topics it changes how

our perceptions about those people and

topics and it changes ourselves we

change as people through games because

we’re involved and we’re playing and

we’re learning as we do so thank you