Part 1
Spent Game
What I learnt from this game is the importance of considering all the consequences before spending money, especially when you do not have a lot. At the beginning of the game, I had to choose between living far from my work at a low rent or living near it at a very high cost. So, as a person who does not have a lot of money, I have chosen to live far away from my work. Consequently, I realized I would incur high gas costs due to the long distance. Therefore, it is extremely crucial to consider all the pros and cons before spending. Furthermore, I learnt that the ability to prioritize your expenses is a crucial skill to have. To be honest, I lost all my money on the 28th day; however, I learnt to identify what I need to spend money on and what is not important. For example, during the game, I had the choice to spend money and go to the gym to release my stress, while I am very poor. In real life, releasing stress is extremely important for humans to be productive; however, we can do exercises at home instead of spending money in the gym.
During playing the game, I liked how it made me realize the hard conditions that multiple people suffer around the world. And that made me notice all the blessings that I am living in. When you always live with a specific blessing, like “having good health”, you tend to feel that it is something normal to have, when it is not. As an example, good health is the biggest blessing that God gave us, but we tend to forget this blessing and forget to thank God for having it. But when we lose it, we recognize its importance in our lives.
Before playing the game, I felt that organizing my expenses was not important, because I always thought that what I spend money on is important for my happiness, so I did not need to think about what I should not spend my money on. However, after playing the game, I realized that I was completely wrong. In the future, when I grow up, I will be responsible for paying bills; therefore, I need to learn how to prioritize my expenses from now on.
I think it would be better for the game to be more realistic because there are ups and downs in life, but in this game, there is a different challenge every day, which is not realistic.
BBC Syrian Refugees
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32057601
Being born in a safe country is a huge blessing, because you did not experience choosing between either getting caught on land and returning to your country to live the worst life conditions or escaping by sea, which is very dangerous with a high possibility of death. Through playing this game, I experienced the refugees’ journey while searching for a safe place to live. While I am searching for a place to spend my weekend at or searching for a cute dress to buy, multiple people around the world are searching for a safe and simple place to live, which is the simplest human right.
This game made me feel confused a lot. The first time playing the game, I ended up in Greece, but I had to face the dangerous conditions of travelling by sea boats, trusting people whom I did not know, and facing the fear of getting caught by coastguards. As a person who did not face these conditions in his life, I cannot imagine myself able to face these challenges; I think that refugees are really superheroes. They faced all the hardships in their lives and are still suffering; however, they are still trying their best to live happily.
Sometimes you must make a hard decision to rescue your family. While playing the game for the second time, I had the choice to either rescue a mother with her daughter from drowning, with a high possibility of getting caught with your family, or hide with your family and not help them. To be honest, I preferred to save my family and myself, and I ended up in Manchester. From the bigger picture, anybody will say that it is selfish to refuse to save others while they are facing death. However, those people did not experience refugee hardships to be allowed to judge them. As a refugee, both choices are not wrong. If I chose to save the mother and the daughter, most probably, I would be caught by the guards and returned to my country, where it is the worst place to live. In addition to leading my family to suffer again, I am supposed to rescue them. So, as a refugee, I thought that it was better to save my family, who trusted me with their lives. Through this game, I learnt that sometimes you have multiple choices, and you are the one who decides what the correct thing to do in that situation.
I think the only suggestion to add to this game is just to make it longer. The game is not deep enough. I engaged with the game a lot, so I want it to be longer and see if I would survive better or not.
Orphan by Heart
I liked this game a lot. I was able to really feel what it means to be an orphan through interacting with the game. It speaks out for orphans because most people will not really understand how they feel. For me, sometimes I hate when someone comes to visit us at home because I may not have the energy to socialize with people on that day. Therefore, I feel that it is too exhausting for orphans to have multiple unplanned visits from people who do not know them, and what they take from these visits is just empathy. The fact that they cannot be themselves and do whatever they want is terrible, which will lead them in the future to be unable to make their own decisions.
After playing this game, I learnt that being able to be yourself and make your own decisions is a huge blessing that I should thank God for. As humans, sometimes we feel exhausted from making decisions and taking responsibility for our actions, but at the same time, many orphans dream of the day when they can be independent and be themselves.
This is one of my favorite games, but I think it would be better if it included visuals to be more representative.
Losing a Parent
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScff3zm_c_vwAc5Blgb9rpV2CQIoMrr6kUVqESA-E-MM7KEGw/viewform
For me, I did not experience losing a parent; however, I found it important to understand how people feel when they lose a parent. While playing the game, I got stuck at some choices like either telling my close brother, who lives abroad, about the truth while I am also suffering, or letting someone else tell him and avoid facing him with the truth. While playing, I chose to tell him the truth by myself, but after selecting my action, I was not sure about what I would do. I think if I face this, I will be lost and cannot recognize what is happening around me. Human emotions are really difficult to understand, especially if you have not faced the same experience. That is why in the game, the character was afraid of not being understood by people because he knows inside himself that they will never fully understand him without going through the same situation.
From what I have observed through playing the game, losing a parent can reshape a person’s sense of security. Parents represent a safe place for their kids, so losing their safe place makes it so difficult to feel safe again, especially if the kids are still young. In addition to having a continuous fear of losing anyone else they love. From my personal experience with my friend, I have a friend “x” who lost her father when she was young, and she got traumatized from losing her loved ones; therefore, she decided not to fall in love when she grew up because of her fear of losing that person. But on the other side, another friend of mine, “y”, faced the same situation, but she felt the opposite. She feels that she needs to find someone to love to experience having a safe place again. Therefore, I think the actions of kids after losing a parent depend on the person’s personality and their needs; some people prefer escaping from reality, and some other people face reality and try again for a better future.
While playing the game, I felt bored because there were a lot of sentences to read. Therefore, it would be better if the situations have less words with some visuals to be more representative.
Sleep-Deprived Mom Game
The hardest job in the world is being a mom. While playing the game, I felt sorry and grateful for my mom. As a mother, you cannot always take a break whenever you want, especially when your kids are young. And sometimes, when you have time for yourself, you are exhausted and need to sleep. That is what happened to me when I was playing the game. At multiple stages, I was looking forward to reading a book or talking to a friend, but after taking care of my child, I am very tired and do not have the energy to do anything. Therefore, from this game, I learnt that mothers also should think about themselves. Thinking continuously about her children and forgetting to take care of herself is completely wrong, which will lead to depression or illness over time.
I think this game is crucial for teenagers to play to understand how our mothers really suffered while taking care of us when we were young, and actually, till now. I think this game would be better if it included different stages in a mother’s life, like representing a mother’s responsibilities in taking care of her kid at different ages. That will represent the continuous suffering cycle of a mother and will be suitable also for adults to feel their mother’s efforts, even when they have grown up. Multiple teenagers today do not appreciate their mother’s hard work and feel that it is her work to do and nothing special. It is important to always remind children, teenagers, or even adults of their mother’s effort.
Project Honduras
https://www.trocaire.org/education/project-honduras
While playing this game, I enjoyed prioritizing tasks. What I learnt from this game is planning and prioritizing. While playing the game, I had multiple tasks to do, some of them are for personal needs and would not help the community, and other tasks are crucial for saving the community. So, while playing the game, I prioritized the tasks based on their importance in protecting the community from the upcoming crisis due to the lack of volunteers who could help with all the tasks. I think this concept can be applied while performing any daily task. The best technique to use when you are busy with multiple assignments is to identify all that you must do; after that, rank them depending on their importance and deadlines.
I enjoyed playing the game because of the visuals. However, I think it needs to include a few details and complexity because all I am doing in the game is just sending volunteers for help. The game is supposed to be about the climate change crisis, but I do not feel that I learnt anything related to that concept. In my opinion, I think the game needs to be more focused.
Empathy Toy
You can never understand how others feel without being in the same situation. While playing with the empathy toy, I experienced being blind for some time, and it was so difficult, but I learnt a lot. When I first became blindfolded before starting the game, I felt a little bit isolated from the world. Everyone is talking about something, but I cannot see it or understand what they are talking about. I felt that people were looking to me without seeing them, which is a hilarious feeling. After that, when I started playing the game, it was a little bit difficult at first. While playing the game, I noticed that I had to pay more attention to my body than usual. As we have learnt before in the somatic healing session, humans tend to live in their minds and forget to pay attention to their bodies. Leading to a loss of connection between them. However, for blind people, they must depend on their senses and body more than normal people to be able to recognize the world around them, which is not an easy thing to do.
Empathy toy is one of my favorite games. I really enjoyed playing the game, and I think everyone must try to be blindfolded at least once. I liked how I went through the blind people’s experience and tried to understand them more and know their feelings that are not easy for them to share. Having the same experience allows people to understand each other and build strong connections between them.
Comparison in terms of Visuals
Spent Game: It did not have visuals; however, it was done on an interactive website. Therefore, I did not notice the lack of visuals, and I was engaging with the game.
Syrian Refugees: It included a lot of visuals that represented each situation, which made it easy for me to understand and imagine each situation.
Orphan by Heart, Losing a Parent, and Sleep-Deprived Mom: The games were informative and crucial; however, they do not include any visuals. Visuals are not a must; however, they provide emotional connection and engagement and enhance understanding.
Project Honduras: I benefited the least from this game; however, it was the best game in visuals and interaction. The game was done on an interactive website that included characters, missions, and instructions that gave me a sense that I was playing a real video game. While playing the game, I felt that I was doing nothing because I was just approving missions; however, I engaged and was entertained because of the visuals.
Part 2
(1) Ikigai Diagram
I love and am good at: Exploring new experiences
Good at and can get paid for: Documenting and connecting information
Can be paid for, and the world needs: Researching
The world needs, and I love: Continuous learning and improvement
(2) VIA Characters
- Love
- Gratitude
- Honesty
- Humor
- Spirituality
(3) AI Chat Link: https://chatgpt.com/share/69a742bf-18e8-8013-aa56-a7c1f15a8cae
(4) & (5) Spreading Awareness about OCD (Possible Game Idea)
I do not consider myself a patient suffering severely from OCD; however, I have a moderate level of OCD that sometimes affects my productivity. The type of my OCD is symmetry and ordering. Most of the time, when my room or my stuff is not organized or symmetrical, I really feel uncomfortable, and my mood suddenly shifts. As an example, when I have a lot of assignments or projects to do, while my room is messy because of my disorganized little sister, I become unable to focus on what I am doing, and I get stuck. In other situations, I became unable to solve exams if I solved questions in no particular order, and I got terrible grades because of that. But unfortunately, not all people can recognize that I suffer from OCD. I really took a lot of time to convince my mother that I have a real issue. Therefore, I am interested in spreading awareness about OCD as a personal life experience.
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