Student Twine Games - The Next Semester

Here are the Twine games from this semester's crop of Anthropology 150 - Multicultural America students. Hope you enjoy!

A Day in the Life - ...

A Mother's Life - A Mother’s Life-- In this game, you will be playing the role of Carrie who is a single mother with three young children named Clara, Jenny, and Tito. Money is tight living in a poor community. Try to balance family and work to succeed in keeping your family healthy and happy. 

Aaitko's Path to Citizenship - In this game you play as Aaitko, a refugee from Burma. He is about to take the citizenship test. You go through a normal day in his life, but his family's future depends on passing the test.

Barbara's Story - In this story, you will be following an elder lady named Barbara. She lives at Luther Manor, a nursing home on the west-side of Milwaukee. After her husband passed away, she began to experience depression, and also gets injured. You will be following her story on therapy and whether she overcomes her depression. 

Beth's Breaking Point - In this game you will be stepping into the shoes of Beth, a 32 year old woman. Who on the outside appears to be living the “perfect” life, but behind closed doors is experiencing severe abuse by her husband. You will face many challenges, try to pick the best choices for Beth to have a better life. Will the choices you make lead to a happy life? Or will Beth remain stuck in an abusive relationship?

Caleb's Test - In this game you will be playing the role of Caleb, an African American boy struggling with school and family life. Being in poverty, he is faced balancing schoolwork and taking care of his two younger brothers while their mother is trying to earn an income. Will you choose the best path for Caleb to better his life?

GED - You’ll be playing as an African American boy named Vince who is trying to balance his work, social, and school life while going back to school for his GED. Vince is a very social boy who attempts to make everyone happy, even if he cannot follow through with his promises. His feelings make a huge difference in his day to day decisions and performance, and ultimately, the goal is the help Vince make the correct choices to best prepare him for taking his GED exam. 

Lacy's Life - In this game you will be making decisions about Lacy's financial repercussions that are a direct result of being medically under-insured. Lacy and her husband Hank are middle class citizens who are struggling to maintain financial and marital stability after Lacy has been diagnosed with cancer.

Life of a Single Mother - Maria is a young woman who just discovered she is pregnant at the age of 18. She must now make life tough decisions for the good of not only herself, but her son, Raul, too. Her life is set in the south side of Milwaukee with options of opportunities and disasters around every corner. 

Maria's Mission - You are newly out of college and about to start your third year of teaching at a local middle school. You come across Maria, a very smart student who is falling behind in your class. Get to the bottom of it and save Maria's future. 

Surviving Immigration - This game is about making your decisions by walking in the shoes of American refugees. Try and navigate a day in the life of having limited English skills, a lack of resources, and the pain of belonging to one of the world's most persecuted groups - the Rohingya.

Victor's Story - As a 15 year old trying to fit in, you recently move to a new neighborhood and pursue your first year of high school. Your newly “best friend” faces you with multiple obstacles out of your control that you are not comfortable doing, but want to look cool. Guidance is offered by your older brother which can determine your future for the better. You must make life-altering decisions, but what path will you take?

Why Don't You Just Be Like Gary? - Explore how privilege affects an individual's path through life by playing as eleven different characters! Each character has their own set of traits that will change the outcome of the game. Will the kids accept you in high school? Will you get that big job promotion? Will your marriage be able to survive having kids? Try your hand at multiple play-throughs!

Why Don't You Just Get a Job? - Gina is a happily married mother of two young boys.  She's trying to find a job so the family can stop living paycheck to paycheck and start to get ahead.  Sleep is tough most nights because she knows she's just one accident, one surprise bill away from losing their home.  She's certain that if she can just find a job, things will work out. She hears other parents whisper, "why doesn't she just get a job?"

New Class - Anthro 150 - Twine Games!

Here are the Twine games made by my Anthro 150 - Multicultural America students - enjoy!

Levi's Story - In this choose-your-own-path game, you will be taking on the role of a 6th grade boy, named Levi. You will have to make decisions throughout your day, with some being more difficult than others. in order to make it to tutoring at the end of the day.

Brenda's Do or Die - In this game you will be playing the role of Brenda, a 40-year-old white woman who has suffered on and off from various drug addictions. On her road to recovery, Brenda is faced with many obstacles and challenges. Please navigate her way through everyday life while she resides in Milwaukee to keep her alive and well. While playing, will you choose correctly and keep Brenda on the straight and narrow? Or will you lead her back down a destructive path? The choice is yours.

Another Day of School - Kristoff is an African-American boy in the 4th grade who is struggling with his reading and writing. Having just moved to a new school in the inner city, Kristoff has a chance to reach grade level in reading with your help.

Struggles in the Life of a 1st Grader - The life of a 1st grader being the oldest of 4 boys, living under a single parent in an impoverished neighborhood.

Greg Brady: A Young Man Living on the Fringe - Greg Brady is 23 years old and lives in Riverwest, Milwaukee, WI. After losing his job and being forced to drop out of school, he must now overcome personal demons and adversity to get back on his feet as a responsible adult and avoid having to move back in with his parents.

Volunteering at the Assisted Living Center - A 25-year-old rocker takes on volunteering at a senior living center. There he learns the value of the elderly and the struggles they face on a daily basis.

Team 6 - Put yourself in the shoes of a minimum wage earning, single mother of two elementary schoolers. You have the difficult task of juggling your kids, work, transportation, and more. Experience a couple of days in the life of a single mom and realize how every decision can bring new challenges to overcome.

*Links were updated as I moved all the games over to a different philome.la account,

Parlaying Values

        In the journal article “Parlaying Value: Capital in and Beyond Virtual Worlds”, the author Thomas Malaby discusses three forms of capital in the synthetic world. Synthetic world is another way of saying virtual world however, Malaby uses the term synthetic instead of virtual, because it shows that the world in question is made by humans. He states that the term virtual although can be seen in a positive light for giving an image, it is also a term that created the real vs unreal division.

Let Me Post Cosplay...

In class on Thursday, April 14^th we watched video poking fun at the “selfie” phenomena that seems to have taken over social media everywhere.  Selfie’s are the now expected photos of your friends that you see when they are out having a good time that they take of themselves, often before they head wherever they are off too.  The video touches on the popularity of selfies, but also communicates what is important to the cosplay community and explores what happens when that is broken.      

Wanna take a selfie?

 

            Last night in class we got the chance to watch the parody video of “Let me take a selfie” only on cosplay instead.  The major message I got out of this parody was the dislike many cosplayers have for “fake” cosplayers.  How she makes fun of how people only posting pictures of them in their cosplay for “likes” and how they take the pictures just to look sexy online.  Another reference was “I bet she didn’t even play that game” basically saying how some people dress up in cosplay but don’t know the actual game or character they’re cosplaying as.  As someone who doesn’t cosplay or know much about cosplay or the games in general I get the impression right away that a lot of girls dress up in cosplay and try to make it more of a sexy costume rather than more realistic.  That’s why I think I originally felt like this video was targeting girls who just try to look sexy. After the discussion we had in class from watching the video I realized that these games actually make women have over the top sex appeal and that when woman do cosplay it isn’t them looking for attention by altering the characters outfits.  So the video was more so aiming at those who aren’t real fans, not people looking for attention in a sexy outfit.  Another issue brought up was the idea of “steampunk” which I didn’t even know existed, or would be considered a bad thing in the cosplay community.  I assumed that adding your own custom pieces to outfits for cosplay would be cool and something that would be enjoyed in the cosplay community.  I didn’t think that making things identical to the original version was so important because now a day’s most people strive to be unique and stick out as much as possible.  I think after the classroom discussion on the video my entire views on what she was trying to say changed, my original thought was that she was sick of seeing girls just there in super sexy outfits or posting on facebook or other social media sites for likes.  However her problem more so comes from the idea of people faking their belonging in the cosplay community by not knowing the real games or characters they are cosplaying, and using it as bragging rights on social media, but not for the reason of actually having a passion for the game or cosplay.