Reflection Wk 6: Player-centred design

Re: Reflection Wk 6: Player-centred design

I’ll take a parallel to film theory for this one. While catering to a large audience might seem like common sense, there is a school of thought that says that film can work on a much smaller but very powerful scale. One such example can be made from the films of Jean Rouch. While his films can look sub-par for the common viewer, Rouch believed that film could bring positive change to those involved. In his film Human Pyramid (1961), for example, Rouch employed a group of mixed race students from the Ivory Coast to tell a story about racism in society. While the film doesn’t make any effort on production values, the students involved in it actually overcame their prejudices and became close after the film. The film worked as a kind of social therapy, as was intended by Rouch.

The same could apply to games, in my opinion. Player-centred design makes a lot of sense if you want to reach a big audience, but games could also work the same way as Rouch’s films, even if only at a individual level. This seems to be the case with Passage. Although I’m not familiar with the designer’s decisions for the game, it seems to be a very personal project that he happened to share on the net.