Fantasy Video Game 'Dragon Age Origins' and its Relation to Doki Doki Literature Club

Using the terms and definitions found throughout the first few weeks of readings and lectures, the second assignment will task you with conducting a close analysis of an individual videogame (or videogame-related media or art object). To complete this assignment, you must select one of the readings from the first five weeks and use the arguments and/or concepts contained within to help you analyze your selected example. You will be expected to briefly quote or paraphrase the ideas you are referencing. These references must be properly cited and a properly formatted work cited or bibliography section must be included with your assignment that lists both the essay(s) and game(s) you are discussing.
You may submit your assignment as either a 500-1000 word text file or a 5-10 minute recorded slide presentation. Your Game Analysis will ideally achieve some combination of the following:
- A detailed description of the videogame you have selected. This can be of its aesthetics, mechanics, narrative, history, and/or cultural reception; however, whatever you choose to focus on should be related to the reading you have selected to pair with it.
- A concise argument for how your selected videogame relates to your chosen reading. How does your game help to explain the essay’s concepts? How does your paper help you to understand your game in an unexpected or novel way?
For example, you could use any of the readings from the second week to discuss how a game like Mario Party™ Superstars (Nintendo, 2021) relates to the traditional game form (rules, win-loss states, play, etc.). Or as another example, you could use one of the texts from the third week to analyze the literary qualities of a visual novel like Doki Doki Literature Club! (Team Salvato, 2017).
The goal of this assignment is to get to you further develop your ability to rigorously engage with a recent game studies text as well as to practically apply game studies scholarship to an example of your choosing. As this combination of analysis and research is standard practice for most game studies scholarship and videogame criticism, this assignment will provide a brief example of what students can expect if they are interested in publishing within either field. Alternatively, for those with no interest in publishing, this assignment is also intended to provide you with a toolset that you can use to critically analyze any games that you might play in the future. You will be graded on how well you adhere to the instructions listed above in addition to the overall quality of your writing (clear, easy to understand, no typos present, and falls within the expected word count range).
to the writer:
you may choose one of them as the reading of this essay. Thank you so much.