For my final project I hope to expand upon my practicum from week 3, participant observation in Sky: Children of the Light. I was particularly interested in hoe people expressed themselves and communicated nonverbally with other players. I have begun to do some more research into fan-made videos (on youtube), as well as more reviews in the comments on google play. In short, I have been trying to find spaces where players are able to express their feelings about the game and produce their own creative works. Engaging with players in Sky: Children of the Light introduced me to the idea of nonverbal communication within the game, which I attempted to engage in, but it has been beneficial to see different modes of communication and self-expression at different levels, as I was generally limited by my position as a novice player.

I also hope to incorporate music more into my blog post, as music seems to be of great importance to many players. In many reviews, players listed music, visuals, and community most often as the aspects of gameplay they most enjoyed, so I hope to follow their lead and try to emphasize the aspects of the game the players themselves choose to emphasize.

While it would have been interesting to attempt the idea with the chatterbot from sequel, I was having some challenges with their website (there were no writing desks available? I don’t know what that means…) so I hope to do a blog post but expand upon my participant observation with external materials and more sound and video. While interviews in the game are hard, I hope to find players’ opinions in external sources, and begin to better interpret what I was seeing in the game.

This was probably the most organized player-created content I found, and as many commenters noted it is particularly impressive because of the difficulty in communicating:

I have spent most of the time finding suitable media from other forums this week, so my next blog post is not entirely prepared yet, but I have found some interesting material and I am really looking forward to it. I am hoping to incorporate a little bit more context as well, as I feel that my write up may not have been as accessible for those who do not know the game as well. I may post the intro video which tells the basic plot at the beginning, just to provide more context for those who need it.

I hope to pare down some of what I wrote in my last blog post, which was less focused, and allow more space for player-created material, from those who are more involved with the game. Many players seem passionate about this game and have created videos and art that show their own interactions and how they can best express themselves, and I feel that it would really improve my blog post to incorporate some of their own works. I really liked the idea from the Elder reading, that ethnographic work should be collaborative, and those being filmed or studied should be involved in the process. While Sky: Children of the Light is a platform that makes the participants’ collaboration difficult, it seems that if I can incorporate materials that community members have produced and are proud of, that may be a step closer. To achieve this goal, I have spent the past few days looking for materials related to communication and self-expression created by players to incorporate into my final project, and have looked at reviews to find the elements it seems the average players find most important.