After reading excerpts of Persuasive Games, you should be able to explain and analyze the procedural arguments made by videogames. We'll put those skills to the test by working in groups to conduct such an analysis.
We'll be asking this: How do the game's mechanics make arguments? What are those arguments? What is the significance of those arguments? Remember that procedural rhetoric is different from verbal rhetoric, visual rhetoric, or textual rhetoric. The images and text of the game do in fact make arguments, but that is not what we're focused on here. Instead, your task is to examine the procedures of the game and to explain how those procedures mount arguments.
The questions you'll address in your brief response paper are: How does the game work? How does the game use computational procedures to make an argument? What is that argument and what is its significance? What claims about how the world works (or how the world should work) does this game make?
Papers should be no longer than 1000 words (roughly: Times New Roman, 12 point font, four double-spaced pages) and should be uploaded to Dropbox.
When providing feedback, we will be looking for the following:
- Is your paper formatted correctly (double-spaced, observes the word limit, name in upper-left-hand corner)?
- Does your paper effectively describe how the game works?
- Does your paper fairly describe and analyze the game's procedural argument?
- Does your paper describe the significance of this game's procedural argument?
- Is your paper written effectively and coherently with very few grammatical errors?
- Was the paper turned in on time? (Reminder: We do not accept late work.)
