Reactions to Game Play

I found the process of playing other groups' 'games in progress' pretty interesting. It will be even more interesting to see how the games change after all the feedback.

With our game, some of the specific feedback was expected, while some of it was rather surprising to me. Overall, I was disappointed to the reaction to it. I fully understand that our instructions were sub-par and, therefore, were the root of most of the confusion. This is particularly true considering that even I couldn't tell the difference between some of the majuscule and minuscule typeface (mortal & venial) on our sample Sin Cards. That said, I don't really think the game is that hard to understand. I was pretty surprised that some of the other students had so much trouble with even the over-arching concept.

This is perhaps the first time that I've really felt the effects of being 10 years older than my classmates. My thought was, "I'm not Catholic either, but I have a clue about the religion. How can they not have any exposure to some of this stuff? Haven't they seen any movies with Catholic characters or studied any European history?" After all, Catholicism has been a major social and political force for centuries and is currently has over 1.1 billion adherents in the world (that's almost 1/6 of the entire world's population)! (http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=8620)

Furthermore,

"Roman Catholicism in the United States has grown dramatically over the country's history, from being a tiny minority faith during the time of the Thirteen Colonies to being the country's largest profession of faith today. With 76.9 million residents professing the faith in 2003, the United States has the the third largest Catholic population in the world after Brazil and Mexico. Approximately 44% of American Christians are Catholic; it is four times the size of the next largest faith profession, the Southern Baptist Convention Denomination."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholicism_in_the_United_States)

Therefore, the argument that there are more Protestants in the United States than Catholics, appears to be completed unfounded. I would be willing to believe that NCSU, our class, and possibly the South overall are more Protestant than other parts of the US, but that's about as far as I'll go.

Therefore, to clear up some of the confusion, Luis and I have decided to re-frame the game, as opposed to significantly modifying it. It was suggested that the game could be educational in some manner, as well as to not promote stereotypes, but that would be contrary to the entire point of the game. We may consider giving a small amount of background to the religion (for those with absolutely no familiarity with the faith) at the beginning of the instructions, but otherwise, the game will be re-framed as "A Guilty Game for Recovering Catholics" (or something along those lines). The intended market for this game is that segment of Catholics who can see humor in their religion. The game would be sold in novelty shops, perhaps next to the wind-up nun who spits fire and waves a ruler ("Nunzilla"):

Nunchuck:
and products like these, available from http://www.landoverbaptist.com/:

For a little background & explanation of some of our choices:

Regarding Sins - Mortal vs. Venial

-Mortals are the big ones (pre-meditated badness). We researched lists of them and tried to make them specific to a situation to add in some humor.

-Venial sins are basically accidental sins. Therefore, we decided to have things like "picking your nose on a Sunday" because they are 1) not premeditated and 1) rather silly things to feel sinful for doing it in the first place. We felt we had some leeway in creating our venial sins because of their open-ended nature.

There are several elements in the game are clearly satirical to a reasonably aware audience:

The 'nine levels of hell' immediately set up the game as a satire. The nine levels of hell are not even part of the Catholic doctrine (in which hell is just hell). They are a reference to Dante's Inferno, which he wrote as a joke (really - he wrote his own friends into the levels of hell, complete with inside jokes, etc).

-The element in the game in which a player builds his/her own bonfire on which to be burned at the stake is a reference to the The Inquisition (and all the other silly things that have been done in the name of religion), Joan of Arc, and witch-burning. Since catholicism was the (forced) religion of Europe for centuries, it follows that Catholicism is a fitting victim of satire.

-Through the methods of negating sins, the game also satirizes corruption in the church (or any large, dogma-based organization, for that matter) in that church power and redemption were historically often linked with wealth (purchasing indulgences) and "buying" forgiveness through confessions and penances.

-The idea that there aren't rewards built into the game that allow a player to get to heaven reflects the very guilt-laden and oppressive nature of the certain religious faiths. Our game is meant to make fun of the controlling, top-down, sheep-mentality-affirming nature of many large faith-based organizations. Because the game's outcome depends partly on which sins you randomly draw (in other words, what someone else defines as your sin), the game also touches on the doctrine of pre-destination (found in some Protestant faiths), as well as the idea of constant, insurmountable unworthiness.

-Albeit temporary, part of the humor of this this game is it's presentation around Easter time, originally a pagan holiday. The Catholic church superimposed the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ onto the Spring Equinox because their attempts to wipe out the pagan holiday failed.

So, again, next thing for us to do is re-center the user so that the experience is appropriate. This will involve putting a bit of background into the instructions, making the instructions explicitly clear, and changing the game's title to make the satire instandly recognizable as such.

Suggestions from the class that I found helpful:

-explaining the differences between mortal and venial sins and making them more obvious through our typeface

-giving a bit of background on the Catholic faith, for those who aren't at all familiar with it

-using a stair-stepping design for the gameboard (we already intended to do this, but it's awesome that other people thought doing this would add to the game)

-using ironic characters like nuns and prisoners for gamepieces. Great idea! I think it would also be fun to add, perhaps, a little girl in pigtails, a baby in christening garb, and a Tibetan monk

-Removing / changing the "Free Will" component of the game - having cards that the player must play immediately upon drawing them mixed in with cards that the player may keep and play strategically at other times was very confusing

Overall, I'm happy with the game concept and feel, so far, that it fulfills the assignment of "creating a game" (even if some students in this particular class did not catch all the subtleties).

More to do!