One of my goals is life is to turn the rest of the world into as big of a nerd as I am because--wait, why do I need to explain myself here? All I have to say is that my job as a teacher of college writing allows me to force video games on the afraid and unwilling, which is always a good thing. It's all part of making the world just as nerdy as me.
Of course, there's a method to my madness. The backbone of my course is a nice little book called Everything Bad is Good For You, which states that video games actually give our brains a cognitive workout, because they require a constant use of the scientific method. And because video games are all about teaching you things within the context of their use, I force my students to write a paper based on a game they choose to play in order to see some of the concepts of our texts embodied in action. But first, I make them play We Love Katamari.
Why We Love Katamari? Well, mainly because it serves up levels in neat little chunks that are a perfect experience for the uninitiated. Students come up one at a time, I tell them only that they have to use the analog sticks, and they're given three minutes to figure out just what's going on in this strange new rainbow-colored fantasy world. I then ask them to write me a little essay about their experience with the game, what they did in the world to test their abilities, and if they understood the "point" of the game. It helps that the 18 and 19 year-olds of the world are completely unaware of Katamari Damacy; in the three classes I've done this experiment in, only one person has ever admitted to even vaguely recognizing any game from the series.
My favorite part of this experiment is seeing how the "other side"--the non-nerds of the world--react to a game that's so video-gamey. A lot of the guys scoff at We love Katamari's weirdness, and, unable to believe such a game actually exists, think I programmed it in my own basement. The majority of the girls, who are usually the furthest from "hardcore gamer" you can get, show a little trepidation at first, but are soon laughing and talking to the screen while they twist and swing the controller left and right in an attempt to better control their katamaris.
The results of this in-class gaming session are incredibly fun to read, especially coming from the students who are video game virgins; but it's important to note that the point of this assignment is not to understand We Love Katamari, but to write a good narrative of an attempt to understand it. Next week, I'll pull some nice quotes from my students' work--with their permission, of course--and we'll see gaming through the eyes of the non-gamer. They outnumber us, you know.
Related Links:
The Revolution WILL Be Colorized
Personal Firsts: My Gaming Scrapbook, From A to Wii
Katamari Cake Makes Us Indescribably Happy, But We Will Still Blog About It