Pharaoh’s Gambit: The Rise of a Chess Warrior – Part I Reflection on Games

Hello my Friends. hope you all are doing good !

Today, I am going to share with you 7 games I played,and I personally found them extraordinarily constructive. The first one is Spent “https://playspent.org/html/“. This game puts you in various situations where you can see life from other people’s points of view. My comment here is that it is only focused on US citizens, and it does not refer to our MENA circumstances. To start with, I played it twice, and in the 2 trials, I managed to reach day 30 without losing any balance in the middle, but I had to choose between difficult situations. Besides the fact that I knew information that I did not knew about US citizens, I felt grateful about being in my country, Egypt. In my first trial, I chose to work the second shift. What surprised me while playing was that I had to choose to bring groceries for 1 week or more, but I managed to get for 5 days and risked my children going hungry. The fact that made me surprised is that each year 15% of American citizens’ households have a hard time getting food. I asked myself, How is this even possible? Do Americans have a way to work around this point? This triggered my curiosity to conduct research on this topic through the US Department of Agriculture “https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics”  I found that almost 14% of US households have food insecurity, which is a huge number; thus, the US has an initiative to provide food for those people. The second thing that grasped my attention was the credit card payment. If I paid the minimum required for the credit card, I’d spend almost 17 years paying this card’s expenses. For me, this is an unacceptable number of years to be liable for. So, in the second trial, I chose to work as a server in a restaurant. I actually had 3 job strikes but I made it to the end of the month safely. In this time I experienced different aspects such as being diagnosed with heart disease but not being able to get hospitalized and I found out that in the US, almost 7000 people due to heart diseases. As discussed in my Digital Literacy course earlier with Dr.Maha Bali, IU discovered that not all US citizens have medical insurance. I find this violates the SDG goals and the government should take a decisive action towards this. This is a Human right that should be delivered to each and every person. Last but not least, I was sick for a day and I ordered an excuse, it was not a paid one. I actually did not get a sick leave and actually I discovered that 33 million working US citizens do not get sick leave. In my non biased opinion, in work, we work as a team, we carry each other when one is sick. Thus, not giving them sick absence is an absolute Autocratic management practice that needs to be changed over time. I suggest that this game may include a photo of the person at each stage so that we as people who try the game can be more engaged, leading to better connection. Also, I learned that we should be grateful for what we have as there are people who can not afford to diagnose heart diseases. Below I can show you my results and I am waiting to see your results!

The Second Game I played is  The BBC Syrian Refugees Game “https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32057601” I played this game Twice. The first time I chose the Egyptian route and went through Alexandria, but eventually, I did not make it out of Egypt and got caught by the police. In my opinion, this illegal way is not that effective, refugees may go to the embassy or even people who are in charge and ask them to go to whatever land they want “Legally”. For the second trial I chose the route of Turkey. I eventually chose a hard choice to let my sister go to live. In that moment, I felt that my heart was shouting, “How would you sacrifice your own blood?” but living in life requires sacrifices. Although I sacrificed for my sister, there was a person who was a fraud and took my deposit and left me stranded in Turkey with almost 6000 Dollars. I can see this result as a fair one, as I should have chosen to sacrifice myself rather than my own blood. Justice is applied. In this game I suggest having more routes so that one can live the actual situation of refugees. I also recommend having a video that shares awareness of the refugees’ sufferings. This will make more connections with the people playing this game. I learnt that sometimes life puts us in difficult situations and only you who will be blamed for having the choices. either right or wrong. You are the one responsible. So get up and start walking. I will share my results with you and I am looking forward to seeing yours!!

The third game is one that we played in our class with Dr.Maha Bali named “The Empath Toy” “https://twentyonetoys.com/pages/empathy-toy?srsltid=AfmBOooOMj0P9nXxj2FezCeHCes6kCRKEQRlW73PvDmnVBDgqnn2Jo4S” This game I participated in as a blind folded person, at first my friends gave me a built model that they decided on and I had a mission to explain to my other folded friend to build it. At first, I found it difficult to explain what to do for the other person. But with time, we built a connection, and somehow we managed to build a part of it, and then our friends helped us to complete the model construction. This game made me view the world with a different perspective and feel how blind people react to life. I realized that blind people are intelligent enough to see the world from their own perspective. The way they deal with life without seeing it is phenomenal. Besides the fact that they walk without seeing, they can explain the procedures effectively as if they can see it. As Dr.Maha said in class, she had blind students before, and they managed to succeed in this game in different ways. But you know something? This may be metaphoric. Living in a world of your own and not seeing the black picture of humans is somehow good. We humans should go blind sometimes. My bottom line is that I recommend playing this game a lot as it will not only enhance one’s ability to explain and receive information but also will allow one to construct connections with different people.

The Fourth game I played is a professional game named October 1st,2020 “https://caitkirby.com/downloads/October1st2020.html” This game put me in serious situations in the pandemic as a professor. Whether to choose to save my job or my health. Eventually, I found out that the university had no mercy on me and forced me to go to physical classes rather than having it online, knowing that I have a child that can be easily impacted by any flu. I see this situation as humane, and if I were in the university’s place, I’d allow the professor to have online classes to avoid spreading the flu. It will be a win win situation. Also, in the end, I felt that I got infected, but I had to go again to the university until they finally approved to have partial classes online. At this point in time, I believe that the university policy should have been changed by the board of trustees to sustain the changes happening in the world and ensure the safety of the faculty and students. I believe this game is a good one as it put me in the shoes of professors. I felt their dilemma. I suggest adding more visuals to engage the one who plays and this will create ETHOS, leading to a better story game. What I learnt from this game is to be more understanding when it comes to people’s health and overall security. I believe I am going to be more understanding after this game 🙂 Let me share my results with you! I am looking forward to seeing yours!!!

The Fifth game I played is a professional game named The Voter Suppression Trail “https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/01/opinion/voting-suppression-videogame.html”  I loved this game as it allowed me to choose my character. I chose a white man named “Maro”. This game showed the racism in the US as at the end of the game, it told me that I was not enraged, and I had 1 minute of waiting. While being Black, I had much time waiting and had been not able to vote as I left the line to for work as my boss needed me. I believe that this is not acceptable; all people have the right to vote or not to vote. Killing people’s voice for not voting is not a really modern solution. Democracy is needed. Freedom is needed. Humanity above all. In this world, we have no time to die. We are in continuous improvements in technologies, but what about humans Are they improving? This is a question we should answer. Will leave time to answer this question 50 years from now. What I learnt from this game is that we humans should stop having the concept of racism and try to live in a democratic life. Where all people have equal rights. I suggest that this game should add, for example, real presidents like Obama and Trump and make a simulation using the same persons’ criteria. This will enhance the game and compare the era of each president. Which one had better democracy? I will share my results with you. waiting to see your results too!

The Sixth game I played is a student game named manufactured evil by Mr.Omar and MS.Nourhan in 2019 “https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1bDaSkTsljnGfVV-MF0prClY8avdriIT5xRWliV0WxlI/edit#slide=id.p” This title grasped my attention. At first I thought of Evil games by the devil but I found it about plastics in the Phillipines. I chose to be the president and the ideas that were proposed, from my point of view, they are beneficial. The proposed ideas were Imposing fines on people who throw plastics in the water, Beach clean, Building Recycling facility and having Garbage trucks. As a person who took a course named Solid and Hazardous Wastes management with Dr. Mohamed ElZayat, I can reflect and say that these are constructive solutions. But what about having sanitary landfills? what about exporting plastics to India? I believe there is much to beyond these solutions. We can actually have a solid waste management system for the Philippines. This system design will include the number of trucks needed to transfer the garbage everyday, the size of the bins needed and their locations, and at last the feasibility study to have a landfill, and its age. Also, what about having public and social consultation about what to do with plastics? As a president of the Philippines, I can use the plastic for tourism purposes instead. I can provide every tourist with a customized plastic bottle. Thus, we will remove the burden of recycling the plastic and the fear of having the plastic being thrown in water. I recommend this game as it puts you in a president’s and citizen’s shoes and makes you able to see things differently. What I learnt here is that plastics have a really good economic value that most people do not see. I chose being a President. You can choose to be a citizen and tell me what you think!!

The Seventh and final game I played is named Losing A Parent by Ms.Mai in 2019 “https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScff3zm_c_vwAc5Blgb9rpV2CQIoMrr6kUVqESA-E-MM7KEGw/formResponse“. This game was very emotional as it put me in countless difficult situations where I chose to be honest and react proactively with the death of my father. I felt the disturbance feeling of the family when losing a member. This game managed to shake my heart and made me overthink of how I should carry my family after my father. This game might have been better if Ms.Mai used visuals; It would have connected with the performer better. What I learnt from this is that we all have difficult situations but you should stand tall and carry your family on your shoulders. That what men should really do.

And now you are wondering which game is the GOAT?

From my perspective, the GOAT game is SPENT. It allowed me to share an American citizen suffering and engaged me till the last day to make hard choices inorder to survive.

1- SPENT

2- Losing A Parent

3- BBC Syrian Refugees

Bottom line, excluding the blind game we played in class which was empathy toy, I believe all 6 games require video as visuals in addition to more visual pictures to connect better with the player.  Lets compare the 6 games based on the visuals and videos.

1- SPENT has 0 videos but some visuals that represent the hazards which I find useful. However, Video will be a plus for the game to visualize the sufferings.

2- BBC Syrian Refugees. The game needs to have better visuals to represent the situation clearly. Also, having a simple animation for the scenarios at the very end will be useful as I will be able to visualize the consequences of my choices.

3- October 1st,2020. This game eventually needs visuals and videos not only to connect with the player but also to be more engaging, fun, and to arget different age groups.

4- Manufactured Evil. This game has great visuals illustrating the importance of not throwing plastics in water and other proposed solutions. However, a short video showing how the marine animals are affected can be useful as it will connect with the reader. By showing the suffering, we can hinder the action.

5- Loss of A parent. This game eventually needs a video. The video may be a part of a film or a play just to make the player fully engaged physically and mentally.

6- The Voter Suppression Trail. This game had video and visuals that were appealing. But I feel that having a video at the end featuring the president winning the elections and the people celebrating, or having the people who did not vote suffering, will better represent the dilemma.

Apart from the games I played, Are you excited for my Game? The blog title may give you a hint of the game! STAY TUNED, SOMETHING GREAT IS BEING COOKED!

Until Next Blog,

Your Friend,

Marwan.