1. Writing for a literature course
Analyzing Video Games in a Thoughtful way

2. Logistics of the essay Requirements:
Three sources and one source must be from a scholarly source like Game Studies
Follow MLA Formatting Rules
3 Pages
Use critical video game terminology
An approved topic
A clear intro, body, and conclusion
Must analyze a game from this class (but it doesn’t have to be the only game you discuss)
Logistics of the essay

3. Start with a strong thesis
Must name the primary source and the focus you will be taking.
It should answer the research questions you pose during the research process.
Start with a strong thesis

4. While using Ian Balfour and Eduardo Cadava definitions of human rights scholarship as the need “to interrogate, measure, challenge, and encourage the efficacy of human rights and human rights discourses,” Video games allow the player to have a different experience interrogating the efficacy of social justice within games that are purposely promoting social justice whether it is a personal message against familial abuse as in Papa and Yo or if it is a strategic persuasive message of activism as in Darfur is Dying (qtd in. 121).

5. In The Uncle Who Works for Nintendo, the idea of narrative as a linear process is subverted as the player is given many choices and must ‘discover’ the end to complete the work.
Thesis starter template:
[Name of game] [Pick a verb like “appears,” “describes,” “enables,” “symbolizes,” “allows,”; this will depend on the last part of the thesis] [the last part is your controlling idea—what are you arguing?]
Kentucky Route Zero describes a clear post-modern environment through the setting, the characters, and the changing narrative voices.

6. This is an analysis not an evaluation.
While you can talk about the success of particular element of the game, it is not a review. Video games are particularly easy to fall into this trap.
This is an analysis not an evaluation.

7. “Depression Quest sucks.”
Depression Quest is not a fun game.
Depression Quest is not a fun game to play; however, this lines up with the purpose of the work as the player is forced to make limited choices, symbolizing the feelings of someone living with depression.

8. Avoid Only Using Plot Summaries
In writing about video games, you want to tell the reader a bit about the moment you are going to analyze, but it should be the only thing you are explaining to the player.
Don’t forget about the analysis. The plot should only be used for explanation or an interesting point.
Avoid Only Using Plot Summaries

9. Darfur is Dying is a part of “a growing but still nascent ‘games for change’ movement within video games,” according to Jose Antonio Vargus, that deal with issues that are intentionally serious. The game has two modes of playing: one requires the player to forage for water as a refugee in the Darfur region with a choice of eight different player characters that range in age and gender. The second mode involves the player to make decisions on how to distribute the water and manage other resources at the camp. In both, the player must hide when the rebels are present. The game itself does not have any form of winning in the traditional sense, but its objective is to keep the camp safe for as many days as possible, and once all of the refugees are captured or the camp is taken over by the rebels, the player is able to post his or her name on the winner’s board. The game is difficult to play and one finds out quickly that the odds of winning are stacked against you as it tries to simulate the dangers one goes through living in Darfur.
This is a plot summary.

10. The act of playing this game has the potential to go beyond reading about the genocide as it forces the player to contemplate the ease of their own life through the action of playing. For example, we are just clicking the space bar to hide our character but the player is a constant reminder that people live this way and are not able to hide this simply. Bogost notes, literature deals with the act of decoding symbols; whereas, “when we play video games[,] we explore the possibility space its rules afford by manipulating the symbolic systems the games provides. The rules do not merely create the experience of play—they also construct the meaning of the game” (121). As a player continues or replays the game, skills are acquired and one gets better at hiding from the trucks full of men with gun. In other words, the game is attempting to simulate how the people of Darfur must also learn to become good at hiding, yet after each time one of your player character get captured you are reminded that you are in a remote computer and have the ability to use a different player to continue foraging for water.

11. Introduce your secondary sources with credibility in mind
Give information about the author.
Contextualize the quotation.
Introduce your secondary sources with credibility in mind

12. Formatting of a paragraph
Topic sentence [Posits your point]
Introduce secondary source [Should act as evidence]
Combine for analysis [Assert you point—make a conclusion]
Formatting of a paragraph

13. Example Individually read the paragraph you are assigned.
Then, as a group—discuss the meaning of the paragraph. Note the topic sentence, the secondary source, and the analysis.
Example