CIU211: Critical Reflection – “Cards For Humanity”
As a team of three people- two animation students, one game student and one audio student- Levi, Nathaniel, Rachel and I, we were able to successfully create a 2D board game that can be downloaded online and played live with friends and family. This games concept involves using post-modernism to allow players to interpret the real meaning behind the game in their own terms; whether is a comment on society itself, or as a whole, or how the mainstream way of comedy has taken a more of a darker turn as opposed to how comedy used to be with harmless pranks. Our game (Cards for Humanity) challenges the stereotypical categorizing in everyone’s head of what is considered to be “good” and what is “bad” in today’s society. Like for example; letting someone who might need shelter, into your own hose isn’t considered or thought to be a bad thing, however what if that person is actually a murderer? Questions like these are a constant in or game, and forces a connection between the two, as well as challenging the player’s moral compass.
Throughout this project, we had to consider what colours would match the stereotypes we wanted to portray during the game. We as a team researched the colours that would reflect and portray our society’s norm of what we think of as “good” colours are- pastels, bright colours and innocent looking pictures. Which is a stark contrast to the inspired and original game “Cards Against Humanity’s” plain black and white, we as a team have opted for these bright colours not only because of the above reason but also because of the underlying message that the world is not always portrayed as black and white. Another major thing that was researched to help portray the post-modernism and stereotypes of today was the questions that would complement the cards and to help give off the “innocent” appeal- as well as the mysterious special cards that can be won at the end to the person/group that was least offensive.
However, when we as a team were brainstorming this we originally weren’t going to have a special card, or even cards that were ‘light’ colours. But we all agreed that having plain ‘white’ cards didn’t portray or express our message clear enough, and we felt that not having a “special card” didn’t motivate or inspire people to try the game- so special cards was made. The idea behind the “special card” in Cards for Humanity was to give players the hope and the motivation to try to be the least offensive player during the game- while knowing that something can be won at the end. After the game is won by someone and they get the special card and see what written on the card; most would be disappointed that it’s just a card with “Good Job” or “You did it!” But in this society people expect to get something more material- an object- not a card. The message behind this being, most ‘nice’ or ‘good’ people wouldn’t expect anything in return but gratitude.
A large part of the stereotypes in society and the categorizing in everyone’s head of what’s “good” and “bad” is the humanities moral compass. A document about a teacher asking his students about a scenario and how they would react, was the basis on the questions that we wanted to add into our cards; since our goal was to make players really think about what they would do in that situation. However there were a lot of challenges when it came to making these questions as well as the cards, design and colours. One of the few major challenges our team encountered when realising these ideas was how we were going to distribute them to public, how many we were going to make, making sure that each question and answer was unique, the decision on whether we were going to make a game or display them on a social media platform with a link to the flash game online. We as a team had many ideas and suggestions, but none seemed to portray or were suitable.
Cards For Humanity Logo – Design by Nathaniel Howard
After our group finally came to a decision on how we were going to display the cards and what social media platform we were going to use, our next thing we had to think about was how we were going to display it, what colours to use and the content to put on the website. We as a team decided to have the background as a gradient- to represent the fine line, or the “gray area” between right and wrong- and how they seamlessly blend into each other. The same concept was used with the title that was in our presentation as well as the website- the bold text mixed with the cursive “for” that is in the title helps to give off the innocent but serious impression. Website aside, we also researched different ways of playing with someone’s moral compass or just questions that challenges the stereotypical categorizing in everyone’s head. Just researching “Moral compass” came up with nothing. So we changed our search and looked into “moral compass questions/quiz/examples”.
After looking into other examples, this inspired our group to come up with questions of our own that were challenging yet interesting. The questions that were added to the cards are crucial to the project’s success in the end; however the end result had many limitations. One example of this was originally each of us was going to create 50 unique cards each. In the end the scope was too large, and our communication was lacking a bit. Although in the end we were successfully able to create a card game that meets our goals we did have problems with team communication and issues with who was going to do what part of the project. What I could have done differently to improve my performance and contribution would be to become more active as a group member and try to find other ways to communicate, as well as setting up a task sheet so there is less confusion in the future. How I will approach similar situations in the future is to plan early in advance, research more thoroughly and set clear goals early.
During this project, our overall product in the end we had several things to think about in terms of questions that could challenge the stereotypical categorizing in everyone’s head, post-modernism and post-structuralism. It was both easy and hard to look for resources to help, as our knowledge from before this project was lacking compared to how the world and humanities views and opinions are today- Especially about moral compass and what is right or wrong. Once we familiarised ourselves with this, we knew the right ways to research this, and because of this became easier to look in depth about our chosen concepts. During this project, I learnt how the world as well as humanity views certain topics, and how they would answer them in this game. Our project was successful, however there was many concepts and research that we could have done to make our message clearer, such as more context behind why we chose certain colours or made the flash game. Before this project, I personally didn’t know how society would view or react to these questions and answers.
After presenting the project to the class and reflecting on the feedback that we as a team have received, majority of the class said that our overall mark should be between the HD and Distinction range. Another thing that a lot of peers had mentioned was that the overall presentation was engaging, has a playful twist, extensive research, everything was set out well and that the interactive aspect was the key to how captivating it was. The successfulness of this project was the interesting take that we had on the project as well as good insight into the subconscious morals of the players. However what could be improved from the feedback are the questions that were brought up could use more prompting to help increase the impact.
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