I actually played Never Alone on my phone, rather than laptop or pc, so one thing that stood out to me was how different the experience was. On a computer, I would normally be much more prepared for an immersive experience and it doesn’t feel weird for me to sink hours and hours into a game; but, on my phone, I found myself skipping a lot of cut scenes because I just felt like I couldn’t be bothered to watch them. This made sense to me, because typically phone games have less depth than pc games and you aren’t expected to be extremely invested into the game. Games revolve more about accessibility and frequency of interaction rather than complete immersive experiences.
But on top of this, I started to think about how context (beyond choice of console) was even more important for “educational” games then regular games. For example, if I had to play this game in a middle school history class to learn more about Iñupiaq culture then I would be thrilled. This would be the most interactive and fun way to learn more. On the other hand, if I’m completely free on a Saturday night, this is probably not going to be very high up on the list of games I could potentially play.
It seems that, in general, the context of the educational games themselves are ambiguous – am I playing a game that is supposed to be educational or some educational module that is supposed to be fun? Obviously in this case, the primary function of Never Alone was to be a good game, but even then the boundaries between education and play were relatively blurred.
To some degree, this is because of the inherent contradiction between gaming and education. By attempting to combine the two, Never Alone may just be misrepresenting the best aspects of both. It was definitely a captivating game, but critics as well have stated their concerns about the actual graphics and mechanics of Never Alone. Meanwhile, it wouldn’t surprise me if many gamers entirely skipped the extradiagetic cut-scenes. In my opinion, there are significantly negative synergies created by attempting to merge the two concepts. Perhaps by creating a game (as relatively good as Never Alone) and a documentary (as relatively good as the videos shown in the game) more people would be generally satisfied than if they were forced to engage with both mediums.
I definitely agree about the importance of context. My experience of Never Alone was possibly different because I'd heard about it before this course, and never imagined it as an "educational" game.
It's really interesting that we respond differently when we suspect that something is didactic. When something is totally fictional, we're often willing to learn the lore, the laws, the constructed histories and cultural narratives, etc. -- but perhaps we're willing to do this because this sort of "learning" actually deepens the escapist effect? In other words, learning fiction is escapist, opening up a space separate from the anxieties and responsibilities of the "real world," whereas learning nonfiction is inherently antiescapist, forcing you to reflect out of the gam…
The point you make about context is an interesting one, especially as it relates to educational games. Like you, I agree that I probably wouldn't seek out a game like Never Alone if I was playing for fun on my free time, but I very much enjoyed it within the context of a school environment. I think this can be explained along the same lines of the observations that McGonigal made about ARGs. She wrote that while most typical video games are "escapist" -- meaning we play them to forget about our daily lives -- ARGs are "antiescapist," because they are designed specifically to help us get more out of our daily lives. Never Alone isn't an ARG, but it…