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