ChristineMarmoy

Mom’s First Step in Autcraft

Christine — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 11:12:53 +0000

My son has been playing Minecraft for about 5 years. He taught himself, well, he got help along the way. His teachers were YouTubers, 2 groups on Discord, and his older brother, did I mention YouTube?

After slamming his bedroom door for the millionth time, he screamed at me, “You don’t understand me; step into my world, mom!”. That’s when it hit me: the understanding, not the door.

It was so simple. Why had I not thought of it earlier?

This was a moment of truth, and step in, I did!

The following day, I sat at my son’s desk and told him, “I’m ready, show me your world”. His fingers were dancing on the keyboard, and after a few seconds, we were in Minecraft. I could tell he didn’t know the game very well yet; he didn’t know precisely how to share that world with me, but he tried to hide his uncertainty. He was also very proud; he was teaching mom something she had no clue about. By all accounts, I’m what he likes to call a ‘boomer’ (I’m not that old, by the way!).

To be honest, it wasn’t love at first sight. The pixelated graphic on the screen bothered me. I had difficulty putting all the pixels back together to see the overall image. It sounds ridiculous, but that was the negative highlight of my first encounter with the game.

Then, trying to follow my son’s avatar, jumping, running, and going back and forth ALL OVER THE PLACE made me physically sick. After 10 minutes, I had to stop; I had terrible nausea. Eventually, I got better at handling the pixels, and he at teaching me. I got it. I saw the magic; I saw him.

This was another moment of truth; we had found each other.

Five years later, I’m about to log into Autcraft this time. Autcraft is a semi-private server offering autistic gamers a safe place to play Minecraft. His founder, Stuart Ducan (@AutismFather), created it in 2013 for his two sons so they could play without the danger of bullying or discrimination. Now 10 years later, with about 15,000 registered players and 1,200 monthly unique players, Autcraft has become a phenomenon. Many other Minecraft servers exist, so what’s different about Autcraft? Safety; each registered player is whitelisted. This means that their digital footprints are verified.

But I’m regressing… I was saying that…. Oh yes, I was about to log in to Autcraft.

This was it. 80%…90%…99% I was in.

The chat on the bottom left part of the screen was intimidating. It was not easy to distinguish the text from the game background. Right at the start, I was greeted, “Welcome, Cici_Sparkle!” and this is, without fail, how I’m greeted every time I come back. Then, I received a list of commands.

It was majestic. I don’t know much, but it must have taken thousands of hours to build. I just stood there, looking up. I tried to take it all in. I don’t think I had enough space in my mind to do that in one go.

I learned about Autcraft through others’ eyes, watching gameplay videos on YouTube, reading game reviews, and asking many questions. But even a thousand videos or articles couldn’t have prepared me for what I experienced.

In the chat, someone inquired about the new player. I only realised this because another player said, “Cici_Sparkle is the new player”. And right there, while in the spotlight, I made my first mistake. My finger (yes, not me) left-clicked and broke a block. This didn’t go unnoticed, and a player reacted on the spot, saying, “Hey! Sorry, but you can’t break that block here”. Petrified, I tried to apologise in the chat. It was my second mistake in what… 3 seconds? I mistyped my answer to read, “yep, it was intentional … sorry about that”, entirely omitting the word ‘no’! What was wrong with me?

To be honest, I was anxious. I was not at all at ease. In the Minecraft world, I felt like a toddler learning to walk in a porcelain shop! I became self-conscious. Many questions ran through my mind, like “Can I walk on the grass?” or “Did I destroy that flower when I stepped on it?” and finally, “I need to ask Stuart. I need to remember to ask Stuart”. Then I found a corner of paradise…. A library. The pages of the book even moved when I approached it.

Then, mistake #3. I fell into a hole near the rail tracks. My son had shown me how to break blocks to create steps and get out/in anywhere, but I couldn’t break blocks. I asked for help.

A player saw my message and taught me how to get out of any sticky situations just by returning to the Autcraft entrance. I learned my first command: /spawn.

I left the game ashamed, embarrassed and overwhelmed. I was crushed at the idea that maybe I had been rude. I thought: “Well done Cici_Sparkle, you already screwed things up”.

But I received my first lesson when I watched the recording to write my field notes:

Things are not always what they seem.

I had not screwed up anything. I had not been perceived as rude. Quite the contrary, from where I stood (outside the game), the players had been around me all along. Nobody left me alone. Everybody tried to guide me. I had just failed to see all the messages, hints, and signs because I was overwhelmed.

I have logged in many times since, and the more I visit this mesmerising place, the more it reveals itself.

The more it is home.

Embodied ‘difference’ in Stray

Christine — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 11:21:34 +0000

Developed by BlueTwelve Studio, Stray is a game in which players embody a cat looking for his family. After the beautiful opening scene, the cat falls into another world called the Walled City.

There, he meets a robot, ‘B-12’. Eventually, they join; the robot wants to free all the robot inhabitants, while the cat wants to get out to find his cat family. In that sense, they share the same goal: to unseal the Walled City.

Stray evolves around exploration, survival, and the search for meaning in a post-apocalyptic world. Unlike Cyberpunk, Stray is not about the end of the world as we know it but rather about surviving once it has been destroyed. The game could be perceived as an exploration of our struggle to find purpose and meaning in an unpredictably hostile world. It highlights how important it is to work together and cooperate with one another in the face of adversity.

**“In Stray, difference is a strength, difference interconnects, difference is a universal emotional language”**

The symbolism of the cat

A symbol of independence and autonomy

Cats are said to be solitary animals that do not rely heavily on humans. Regardless, the cat partners with a robot. The entire storyline is built on their journey together. The cat and the robot are different; they represent different species, use different communication systems, and have different natures, yet their fate is sealed by a common goal. Throughout the game, they use their differences to understand each other, help each other, overcome obstacles, and succeed together.

A symbol of curiosity and exploration

Cats are also known for their curiosity, a quality that fits this game genre. You must be curious to bravely navigate unknown territories, discover hidden secrets, and use them to free yourself. I see two messages here. On the one hand, Stray suggests that from our differences emerge the solutions to all our challenges, and on the other, we, human beings, shouldn’t take anything at face value but rather question everything. In brief, we should become more curious.

A symbol of resilience and adaptability

Cats quickly adapt to new environments. They are survivors. Stray highlights the need to become flexible in mind and body (a cat is agile!), especially in times of change (Is there ever any other kind?), and implies ideas of elasticity, pliability, and plasticity. To adapt, we also need to accept the possibility that things can be different even if they seem the same. The agility of our mind helps us perceive what is invisible to the rigid thinker. And to make it happen, we also need physical agility; a flexible body leads to a flexible mind (Yoga).

From the virtual to the physical

While it’s happening virtually inside a video game, these three underlying symbols have their application in the physical world:

Appreciate differences and use them as a positive strength
Develop an inquisitive mind and think like there is no box
Embrace flexibility and build resilience

Stray and self-realisation

The cat’s journey through the many layers (12 chapters) of this underground world could be interpreted as a metaphor for self-realisation. Just as in the physical world, players must overcome obstacles and make difficult decisions to progress and eventually succeed. Here I found the choice of a cat avatar quite interesting. Self-realisation is an individual journey, even if it takes a village to achieve it. To embark on such a journey, the individual must have a great deal of autonomy and independence and a burning desire to uncover their identity and purpose in life. Of course, I’m not implying that cats have an exploratory nature because they seek self-realisation, but rather that since they demonstrate personal traits that are useful for such endeavour, using a cat avatar makes perfect sense.

UX in Stray

From a user experience perspective, the gameplay is rhythmic, involving a combination of explorative, combat, and puzzle-solving mechanics on the backdrop of fabulous designs and a beautiful soundtrack.

Using a cat avatar could attract cat lovers, but more importantly, the cat makes for a more accessible exploration of what difference really is (When was the last time you moved around as a cat?). Sometimes what is impossible is easier to handle than what is unusual but probable. When players embody the cat, they have no referential, no biased assumptions. They can only BE in the experience.

The cat in action

There is a lot more to say about this game; I’ve taken so many notes. It took some time to go through the game since I kept pausing it to write down ideas. There are 2 other angles I’d like to explore (I need more time, honestly 24 hr is not enough!). First, I’d like to address the game’s heuristics to highlight how it exploits experiential learning and concept formation. Second, I’d like to deepen the notion of difference using Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence.

Life is Strange – Existentialism in Video Games

Christine — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 17:06:45 +0000

Life is Strange is a video game of the ‘coming of age’ genre developed by Dontnod Entertainment. While the game caters to an 18+ audience, its storyline, through the existential journey of its protagonist, Maxine Caulfield (Max), has a broader appeal (I should know, I’m not a teenager anymore!). The first game was released in 2015, it’s not a new one, but if you join the party late, I don’t want to reveal all the details, so I’ll only highlight the key aspects for me.

The game consists of 5 separate chapters, meaning you can buy them individually. Each chapter offers the player to experience Max’s everyday life through her actions, choices, and decisions while her journal reveals her thoughts, feelings, and memories. The game progresses, to some extent, according to the choices we make as we embody Max. But, irrespective of the path followed, every player faces the same dilemma.

The overall story

The game portrays the life of a few students in an upscale boarding school in Arcadia Bay (a fictitious town). The protagonist, Maxine (Max) Caulfield, is an introvert who has difficulty fitting in among her peers. Yet, she has a keen eye and always spots the unperceivable, which she immortalises with her camera. The other main character is Chloe Price. The first chapter sets the tone when in class, Max has a vision; she sees a tornado destroying a lighthouse. Needing to escape the horror, she takes refuge in the school bathroom, but she witnesses Chloe getting shot there. This event triggers Max’s power; she can rewind time. Having the ability to rewind time also means that she has the responsibility to prevent Cloe’s murder. Once Max saves Chloe, she also changes the story. Now, Max is facing repercussions, and Chloe comes to save Max in the parking lot. As the game is built on the backdrop of the interplay between Max and Chloe, players also travel between the two world possibilities; one in which Chloe lives and one in which she doesn’t.

The sense of agency

The notions of autonomy, agency, and freedom are essential to Sartre, who said: ‘we are a choice’[1]. With choice comes change, hence transformation, which is exploited through Max’s transition to adulthood. In the first episode, ‘Chrysalis’, Max writes in her journal, ‘I am trying to climb out of my cocoon’. Each situation in which Max must decide on a course of action serves as a catalyst for her growth. She transforms every time she rewinds time and chooses a different option to save her friend. With every choice, she removes a layer of childhood; adulthood is inescapable. But Max is afraid of growing up. It means more and more choices to be made and more consequences to face. In episode 2, ‘Out of Time’, another dimension appears; Max is getting lost in an emotional turmoil (and so did I); she realises that she needs to account for ‘others’, for her decisions and actions also impact them. Echoing Sartre, who stated that “An individual act engages all humanity”[2], Max understands that this cycle of influence between her and others is also unavoidable because she is contingent on them and vice versa.

It could be counterintuitive to suggest that video games represent agentic spaces where players benefit from total freedom of choice. The game remains somewhat ‘pre-determined’ since its design is articulated around a limited series of potential if-then scenarios. However, isn’t it the same in the physical world? We live in a world full of constraints, yet, we make daily choices. What if video games, through trial and error, could provide us with the required practice to choose wisely?

The plot is set against uneasy topics

Although the game addresses transversal subjects such as friendships, school violence, and bullying, the storyline opens the door to what it is to experience these topics at school. Time is a common feature in video games, yet, its association with the sense of agency in Life is Strange makes for a compelling exploration of heavier topics like death, grief, gender, identity, and responsibility. The game relies on mechanics such as fetch quests, puzzles, and branching choices to build a narrative around morality and ethics. Progressing through the game, I was transported into a drama that surprised me. Regardless of choice, I was meant to have two-sided experiences:

The burden of responsibility that goes along with making choices.
The crush of having to find one’s place where no space seems available.
The desire to make friends when nobody gets you.
The joy of having a good friend and the destruction that comes with loss.
The power to make different choices and realise they never impact the outcome.
The ability to do the right thing while knowing that if I do, all the above points will be shattered.

The plot is rooted in what is unalterable, that is, in the sacrifice that must be made. Ultimately, being the player, I had to decide who I’d rather sacrifice, Chloe or Arcadia Bay? As Sartre said: “When we say that man chooses himself, we mean that each person chooses himself, but also that by choosing himself, a person chooses all humans”^[3].

No matter how often I said to myself that it was just a game, I had to get out of it many times; I needed time to reflect and process the consequences of my choice.

There is a twist.

If you decide to save Arcadia, you return to the first episode, but there is no more story between Max and Chloe. Instead you have to deal with Rachel, who is upset with the world (or just Max) for having been sacrificed when she was known as Chloe.

All in all, I appreciated the simplicity of the game, which offset the seriousness of some of the scenarios. The characters, their voices, and the terrific soundtrack absorbed me completely; At times, I had to extricate myself from the experience to resume playing.

In brief, playing felt very natural.

[1] Sartre (1943/2003) Being and Nothingness.

[2] Sartre (1946/2007) Existentialism is a Humanism.

[3] Ibid.

Two sides of a coin?

Christine — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 11:07:58 +0000

I am a loud proponent of neurodiversity. Maybe the reason why the idea resonates with me so strongly lies within 4 letters: ADHD. The concept is recent and possibly too young still to be a model in its own right and be allowed to take a seat next to its cousins the medical, social and affirmation models.

How did this alternative view come about?

Historically, religious leaders were healers. Then, with the pre-eminence of science, they were progressively replaced by doctors predicating the professionalisation of disability within an emergent medical model and what’s more, legitimising institutionalisation. This medical model has always sought normalisation through the elimination of disability, of course we all know that without disability we are the same. Science is all about fixing problems (which is fine really, we need scientists!) but science is also very creative in defining everything as problem so there is never shortage of ‘work’.

A few months ago, Dr Frith made my point in a video where she reiterated what she had claimed in her book ‘Autism and Asperger Syndrom’ – that Asperger children were “sick children who need to be made well again” and presented her research as the solution. More viciously maybe, this model defines disability as a consequence of an intrinsic condition of the person, and in this way, it ensures the label is essential to determine admissibility for public-funded services.

Conversely, the assessment of needs lends itself to the social model of disability. This model was coined by the disabled academic Mike Oliver in 1983 when he claimed people were actually disabled by the barriers society raises rather than their impairments, thus denouncing the discrimination between social and governmental imperatives. It stands aside from the medical one in distinguishing impairment defined as a physical problem or the condition itself, from disability expressed as a restriction of activity caused by an uncaring society.

However, how can public resources be allocated if a disability is not a medical ‘problem’ requiring fixing, but a social construct?

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities attempted to reconcile the two in characterising disability as a consequence of the interaction between the person and ‘various barriers’ aiming to ‘ensure equal human rights and freedoms to all people with disabilities’. It was a necessary model to conceptualise the disadvantages disabled people face every day even after receiving a diagnosis. Since then, it has provided the backdrop for rightfully holding society accountable for helping and supporting the very people it ‘disables’ in the first place. Yet, its interpretation is as diverse as its implementation (will we ever get it right?)

Being forsaken by both models, disabled people created the self-advocacy movement ‘People First’ which considerably amplified the notion of support initiated through the social model. Still, the focus of this movement on negative labelling issues without acknowledging the delinquency of the economic system called for debates. In response, the affirmation model emerged in 2000, which Swain and French (visually impaired) used to argue that disabled people did not want charity (tragedy/medical model) while denouncing that their personal experiences of disability were ignored by the social model.

Interestingly, a few years before, the Australian (autistic) student, Judy Singer, toyed with the notion of neurological variance to finally settle with the term neurodiversity. Neither a model nor a paradigm, the idea circulated and was embraced by the Autistic Rights Movement until the Neurodiversity Movement crystallised. The concept of neurodiversity is the most compelling one, impregnating all public services down to the very fabric of politics. Hybrid by nature, it recognises the biological root cause of autism (medical model), agrees with the social construct of disability (social model), revendicates the positive identity of autism (affirmation model) while celebrating ‘human variation’ (because yes, we are all different no matter what). It refuses the word ‘disorder’, favouring instead the term ‘difference’. Yet, the most promising impact of this blended ‘framework’ is to afford autistic individuals to engage in everything that pertains to autism as epitomised by President Barak Obama, who in 2009, nominated Ari Ne’Eman (autistic) to the National Council on Disability.

Unfortunately, over the years, the need for provisions raised, and in light of the unstable economic climate of late, funds are now sparse thus justifying outcome studies. Let’s just say that since we have to allocate a greater budget to interventions, it seems logical to ensure funds are invested into programmes that actually improve the quality of life of those who are to benefit from them.

But how do we qualify the outcome, what does it mean, really?

And here, we face another dissenting reality; outcomes seem to measure the minimum provision required for support not how efficient support is. The concept of quality of life arose in the 1980s at a time of economic growth within the ‘quality revolution’ which positively reframed the perception of disabled people’s life prognostic allowing for a ‘person- centred’ approach encompassing notions of strengths, self-determination and equity. However, the socio-economic landscape has led to budget restraints and increased marketability of the health sector, in which reactivity reigns over proactivity.
Yet, a recent Spanish study from Arias et al. (2018) gave breadth to the argument that access to support contributes to quality of life and in that sense to positive outcomes.

All in all, measuring quality of life should be about reporting levels of happiness, not a small feat, I hear you! As Peter Vermeulen eloquently said: “wellbeing is more than the absence of behavioural and mental health issues”.

So, when was the last time you asked “Are you happy?”

Who is your Avatar?

Christine — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 10:56:17 +0000

The term ‘avatar’ originates from the Sanskrit word ‘avatāra’ which could be translated as ‘manifestation’ or ‘appearance’ of divinity into the physical world. Today, these ‘cartoonesque’ images have been democratised, but unfortunately, they also lost their mystical aura. Even though many people only see a two-dimensional image, for others, their avatars may be closer to a ‘doppelgänger’, a digitalised alter ego. Entrusted by us, these virtual personas can act out scenarios potentially unconceivable in the physical world in the likes of Freud’s ‘Heimlich and unheimlich’. Within the online game realm, avatars have now evolved into sophisticated representations offering greater technical freedom to customise our digital image according to…

According to what?

What if MORPGs (multiplayers online role-playing games) could afford us a new and safer path to explore who we would like to be, who we could be, or who the world seems to ask us to be? What if we could ‘try’ different versions and have a ‘feel’ for who we truly are inside.

Could our avatar customise us?

In 2017, Mancini and Sibilla had similar questions and decided to rely on two theories of Self to answer them. They integrated the concepts of cognitive dissonance (Festinger) and self-discrepancy (Higgins) to identify three domains of self which seem to co-exist when playing in MORPGs; the actual self, the user’s perception of who they are in real life; the ideal self, who the user would like to be; and the avatar self. According to Higgins, there can be a ‘gap’ between these views leading to negative emotions, the so-called discrepancy. Now his third layer, the ‘ought self’, reflects who the person believes they ought to be, therefore, if this level of self is associated with our avatar, could we project onto it the ‘expectations’ and ‘pressure’ of our environment and in so doing digitalise the conflicted experience (reproducing the malaise) and increase our stress level (let’s face it we are all stressed no point discussing) as Festinger believed?

While I have been working online for about 25 years, and spent many weekends split between eating, sleeping and Super Mario (many moons ago!), today I wouldn’t consider myself a ‘player’. However, my son is, and an ‘experienced’ one I may add! Don’t judge me here, gaming has helped him in more ways than I can count. I’ve seen how he compensates some of his sensory sensitivities through his mouse and the movement similarities between his avatar (Minecraft) and the way he moves his body in the physical world, yet he seems to control one more than the other.

The ‘blondie’ avatar up there is ‘me’, my digital version that is, as seen through my daughter’s eyes. She is the artist in the family and when I asked her to create my avatar, she translated my appearance pixel by pixel; the hair, the glasses of course, but for those who know me, she also captured the way I present myself, ‘my style’ if I have one (?!?) always wearing a shirt under a light sweater with the sleeves sticking out, a pair of trousers, black shoes rarely more than 2 colours at once.

Does that make you know me any better? Of course not, but this image makes me more personable, doesn’t it?

Imagine how powerful would be a 3D avatar capable of speaking and moving like me… cringey or exciting?