Good example

I have seen Call Me By Your Name two times this week. Such an amazing film. It's fucked me up. I keep thinking about life, my identity, and how little I know and have left to learn. As emo as I've been lately because of this (No more Sufjan !!), I am excited to incorporate these thoughts into my final project. I plan on doing an interactive video, or a pseudo-computer game of some sort, on the life of a college student. This idea stems from our class' exploration of playable narratives, glitched/disrupted games and my discovery of the 1995 CD-ROM game Mckenzie & Co. Mckenzie & Co. is a dating sim where the user is a high school girl (choosing between 2 options) whose objective is to pick and win the boy of her dreams (also between two options, unless you have the expansion pack, then it's 4!). The graphics are very lo-fi and the gameplay is limited, you mainly watch what happens to you as you fall into a relationship with the boy you select. From this, I've thought a lot about creating a game that critiques the gender/sexuality stereotypes the original game promotes, but in addition making a game that is only quasi-functional. The trickiest thing I must plan out is whether I am going to use Youtube, Newhive, or a third format. Regardless, I will be make a choose-your-adventure type video. Another obstacle is making sure I critique the original game in a way that is not completely obvious but also does not reinforce the things I am trying to fight when you take the game out of context.

I really enjoyed Jagoda's thoughtful piece this week on "Network Ambivalence." I don't really know how to tie that into my idea but I'd like to try. My work will definitely include theory on the poor image, Bogost's "Approach to video game criticism" and Sample's "Notes to a Deformed Humanities." I highly encourage you all to watch a little bit of McKenzie & Co. if you have time: [1]