Critical Game Design in Practice

Social criticism through video games has been explored since the early 2000s, when game designer and theorist Gonzalo Frasca (2001) poignantly borrowed approaches from experimental theatre and proposed that “the goal of these games is not to find appropriate solutions, but rather to trigger discussions […] games would work as metonyms to guide those discussions and explore alternative ways of addressing real-life issues.” By drawing together traditions of such 'critical game design' (Flanagan, Grace, DeLappe, Ryding, Sicart, Bogost), this talk examines where games’ strength lies in helping people engage complex issues without easy answers – such as the climate apocalypse.