For this assignment, I explored five games that are different from one another. These include one physical game we played live in the university gardens, one student-created digital game, and three professionally developed digital games. Each game carries a unique idea, but the style feels almost the same. Some focus on personal experiences, such as Depression Quest. Playing and examining these games made me realize that games are not only created to entertain people but also to send a message. Stepping into these interactive roles can shift our perspectives and teach us lessons through the choices we are forced to make.

Firstly, the game I want to talk about is the Intersectional (Take a Step Forward Identity) Game, which we played in real life in the university gardens. During this activity, everyone got two identities on a piece of paper; I got (Jewish) and (Middle Class.) We stood in a line while questions were read aloud—such as whether we could travel anywhere, whether we could buy what we wanted, whether we had good access to places of prayer, or whether we could get medical care easily and for every yes, we took a step forward. Playing this in the gardens felt very eye-opening because I was stuck between my two identities. On financial questions about buying things or getting healthcare, being middle class allowed me to step forward easily. However, when the questions were about traveling anywhere or having easy access to prayer spaces, my Jewish minority identity made me hesitate or stay behind depending on the country. Seeing the physical distance grow between us on the grass made inequality feel very real. What I learned from this game is how intersectionality works in real life.

Secondly, the game I played was (Losing A Parent,) a student-created interactive story made using a Google Form where your choices lead you through the story. You play from the perspective of a 16-year-old boy navigating the sudden loss of his father after surgery complications. Playing through this perspective evoked a deep sense of empathy, sorrow, and tension. Personally, I felt really connected to this game since a friend of mine lost his mother due to cancer when he was 13 years old. Even though it was built inside a simple Google Form, the plain format removed distractions and made every click on (Next) feel like an active step into the boy’s personal diary. What I learned from playing this game is that grief is not a simple checklist, but an ongoing and isolating experience, especially for a teenager. It showed how hard it is to be vulnerable when you want to connect with others, like a new partner or colleagues, while fearing that sharing such a heavy truth might burden them or push them away. One suggestion for improving the game would be to add simple visual illustrations alongside the text to make the emotional tone of each stage even stronger.

Thirdly, I played Depression Quest, an interactive fiction game where you play as a young adult trying to manage everyday life, work, and a relationship while living with depression. Playing this game felt emotionally draining. As you read through daily scenarios, the healthy, sensible choices at the bottom of the screen are crossed out in red so you cannot click them. Watching the screen get darker with static while being locked out of the logical options makes you feel trapped and helpless, which shows what the character is actually feeling. The main thing I learned from Depression Quest is that depression is not about laziness or making bad choices, and people cannot just snap out of it. By showing you the best options, like talking openly to your partner or going to therapy, and not letting you click them when your motivation is too low, the game proves that depression takes away your ability to choose freely. One suggestion I would make to improve the game is to break the very long blocks of text into shorter dialogue exchanges, because reading massive paragraphs on every page can slow down the pace and feel overwhelming.

The fourth game I played was a professional educational game made by Trócaire, called (Project Honduras). It’s about climate change and the effects of floods, droughts and hurricanes on communities in Honduras. You are a local teen leader, Javier or Andrea, at a disaster relief center. You receive only 20 volunteers per level, allocated to local tasks before the sun goes down. I really liked this game because the sun was moving across the screen as a timer and there were only 20 volunteers so it was urgent. It was one thing to read about climate change, but quite another to feel the pressure of having to prioritise tasks to save the community before time ran out. What I learned from this game is that dealing with climate disasters is all about managing limited resources and preparing the whole community ahead of time rather than just doing quick fixes. Receiving feedback messages on the in-game phone after each task showed me why teamwork and smart priorities matter so much. One suggestion I would make to improve the game is to carry over your progress from the first level (Flood) into the next levels (Drought and Hurricane) instead of resetting everything each round, so players can see how their early choices help the town later on.

Finally, I played (Bad News), a professional digital game centered on the themes of fake news and online manipulation. Instead of casting you as a fact-checker, the game puts you in the role of someone creating a fake news site by disseminating misleading stories. Throughout the game, you can earn six badges by employing various manipulative tactics—such as using emotionally charged language, stoking polarization, promoting conspiracy theories, and engaging in online (trolling)—all while striving to grow your follower count and maintain a high level of credibility. Initially, I felt a twinge of guilt for choosing headlines designed to provoke anger, but as my follower count began to climb, I found myself caring only about achieving a higher score. This made me realize how easily people can disregard the truth when the pursuit of online attention is turned into a game. (Bad News) taught me that fake news typically operates by distorting genuine emotions and concerns, rather than fabricating entirely fictional lies from scratch. Viewing these tactics from the perspective of their creator makes it much easier to spot them on actual social media platforms. For me, this was the best game in terms of its approach; it featured excellent visual design, and the (follower trust) meter added an even more compelling dimension to the gameplay.

When comparing all five games with each other, it is interesting to see how they share a similar interactive, choice-based style even though their topics are completely different. In all of the digital games, you read a scenario and pick an option to move forward, which makes their core structure feel almost the same at first glance. However, the way each game uses those choices changes the experience completely. Both Bad News and Project Honduras use numbers, scores, and meters to teach you about big issues—with Bad News letting you play the bad guy chasing followers, and Project Honduras making you a leader racing against the sunset with 20 volunteers. On the other hand, Losing A Parent and Depression Quest remove points and timers to focus on personal pain. While Losing A Parent uses a plain Google Form to make every click feel like a quiet, personal diary about grief, Depression Quest crosses out the good choices in red so you actually feel stuck. Finally, comparing the four screen games to the Step Forward game in the university gardens shows the difference between clicking a button and moving in real life on a screen. We choose our own path, but in the gardens, our steps were decided by how society treats our assigned identities.

Finally, if I were to create my own narrative game, it would be a story about restoring and archiving lost memories. You would play as an archivist who fixes broken voice notes, torn photos, and old messages for people who lost someone close to them, like the mini-games in FNAF. Instead of just clicking between two text options, I would add actual puzzles and visuals—like putting a torn photo back together or fixing the audio on a voice note—so the game is more interactive and the player doesn’t get bored from just reading. Every choice you make about which memories to restore or leave out would change how the characters heal. For example, fixing a painful argument along with a happy memory forces a client to face the full truth, while hiding the sad parts only gives them temporary comfort. Overall, the game would look at the balance between holding onto the past and moving forward.

Take a Step Forward (Council of Europe): https://www.coe.int/en/web/compass/take-a-step-forward Losing A Parent: https://t.co/NxxKQPoOXG Depression Quest: http://www.depressionquest.com/ Project Honduras: https://games.trocaire.org/project-honduras/ Bad News: https://www.getbadnews.com/#intro