Blog Post #6

One of the games I played and enjoyed from the website Games for Change was a game known as “Free Rice”. This game was formatted as a multiple choice quiz game that question your understanding on many vocabulary words in the world. The difficulty ranged from easy to hard and for every answer you got correct it would donate 10 grains of rice to help raise and end world hunger through the World Food Programme. The game to an extent was engaging but i felt lacked longevity as it wouldn’t keep an individual entertain for too long. Due to the absence of exciting new levels with different challenges, the game ultimately becomes repetitive.

Although the games was dull at moments it did an incredible job at incorporating the purpose of the gameplay into the actual game. The game related to what I read in the “Reality is Broken” chapter because it talked about the fact on how games could be use as a platform to bring social awareness to big social issues that we have in our society thanks to the four big traits those being a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation. I believe this is great due to the fact it transforms the millions of gamers we have worldwide into passionate individuals who are helping address the issue at hand, all while still being able to do something they love. In other words “Playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles” as stated by article.

References

McGonigal, Jane. (2011). Reality is broken: why games make us better and how they can change the world. Retrieved from https://d2l.pdx.edu/d2l/le/content/731621/viewContent/3758152/View