This week, we discussed a lot about critical play and “reskinning.” We thought a lot about how games and other forms of entertainment can be reimagined in ways that critique systems of oppression, injustice, and inequity. I really enjoyed this week because of the first hand examples that we participated in. Through playing Werewolf and Passage, we were able to interact as a class together to better understand how “simple” games can offer deeper meaning and depth. With that in mind, our next Hack has been assigned as a modification or “reskin” on an existing game to offer a critical stance on a social or systematic structure. I am really inclined to modify and hack a video game, as my brother and I used to hack and mod games all the time when we grew up, but my qualm is whether or not this would actually be feasible. As kids, we jailbroke a lot of our devices to access game files, but nowadays Apple has cracked down on their operating system to make it extremely difficult to jailbreak devices. Most likely, I won’t be able to hack any games like I have in the past, but I think I am going to attempt to create a ROM hack. I really want work with something in the digital field, but if I find that it becomes to difficult and inaccessible (especially in regards to my Mac machine), then I will probably find a way to work with a physical, analog game.
Leave a Reply