I started this project with a friend/colleague 2 years ago. It was my idea and I approached her because she was already a professor and established in games studies

I wanted to make a game that would also act as scholarship. Basically...we make the argument all the time that games are worth exploring...that they have value as learning tools and communication mediums for both small and large concepts

If all that is true, shouldn't a game also be just as viable as a form of communication in a "scholarly" sense, if it does all the things we say scholarship does? Namely: let the player know where the information came from, present an argument or cohesive overview of missing information, and introduce multiple voices and perspectives in the field

I'm not sure if I always wanted it to be an RPG or if that was something we came up with together. Either way, Wendy agreed to join me and we started a GradLife RPG that was meant to show current scholarship on graduate programs and highlight how hard it is to balance the demands of these programs and mental health/wellbeing

We got permission from a number of current scholars in rhetoric who were willing to be the professors in the game. The books you buy for your courses are the courses they said they'd want to teach and the books they'd assign

Our quests and interactions are coming from actual research on grad programs, and we(I) want to have citations pop up on the side of the screen like footnotes/flavor text

All of this is really cool and exciting...but from day one, Wendy has been a steamroller.

and she's taken this on as if it's her project, and not mine. And I'd be fine to share, but she hasn't listened to a lot of my goals from the first

When we were working on it in Unity, she did all the programming (because she already knew basic C# and I didn't), and she would shoot down 90% of what I wanted to do because she didn't know how to do it/didn't want to learn it/etc

Now we've picked it back up for a GameJam and we are redoing it in Twine because all the programming is in html and css, which are languages I know VERY well and Wendy is less established in, but able.

I have done 90% of the coding, and I'm really proud of where it's at

She, however, is annoyed that it's taking too long to play, that it's repetitive, and she keeps trying to cut/simplify content.

Thing is...the demo version that we did in Unity...if you said you wanted to join a study group, you'd click a button and it would add a stat and that was it. There was no sense of time passing, no scenes where you'd go to the study session and interact with people. It might as well have been a list where you just checked off the things you wanted

So when I coded this...you have to pick how you handle meals every week and the choice affects how much money you're spending, how much time you spend shopping/preparing, and your wellbeing if you're going to fast food.

Grading takes multiple clicks. So does lesson planning and working on your papers and portfolios for your own classes

Because those are activities that do take a good chunk of time and they are hard to fit in to your schedule and it's a reality that grad students often sacrifice one or more of these to try and survive

I do take out a solid 80hours of the week for tasks that are made invisible for the player...I don't make people select time for using the bathroom or showering or sleeping or choosing their clothes.

We've put in the option for adding in time for commuting, but so far that hasn't actually been added to the game. The choices and repetition that are there were purposeful

She wants to be able to get through the first semester in 15 min or less...2 years in no more than an hour

i'm with you on this 🤔 that there's intentionality to the time-taking. if she's not listening to your concerns, do you have the time (or capacity?) to build in some user-testing rounds and see if you can get "user feedback" to validate your thinking and show her that....no, yes, there's PURPOSE to this.

me....I want it to be like Stardew or the Persona games. It doesn't have to take AS long to get through a year, but I want you to FEEL that the year has passed

(I KNOW YOU JUST CAME TO VENT BUT here i am.)

thank you

I've been trying to get some playtesters, but everyone's been busy ;;

or just smiled and gone "THat's cool, Jen!" and moved on. /sob

and Wendy only touched the code yesterday after I spent two weeks on it, and it's been nothing but complaints

oh god that's awful. i mean.... i get it. i've had to organized user research and user testing with our users in the past and it's always a pain in the ass.

It happens, and this game jam is just meant to get us a prototype

I just....feel like I'm pulling out my hair fighting for my baby while she tries to cut it down to nothing

you could try and cast your net. find a grad student subreddit or something and pair it with a google form. BUT i'll also acknowledge that user testing might not be your Actual Goal.

as someone working in the edtech space, tho, i'm super intrigued by........the all of this. like Really intrigued.

and if you want a user tester who is not a current grad student but was once upon a time a grad student, i'll happily test for you!

I think I insulted her ;; oops

BUT TO LOOP BACK TO THE ACTUAL POINT OF YOUR PLURK. i'm so sorry. that's very frustrating.

I pushed back and maybe was a bit blatant with my language that I always wanted this to be a quality game first and an "assignable thing" second

>.>

her: "I think we all want a quality game"

ah, it happens. in some respects it sounds like she's been insulting you for a little while now by devaluing your initial goals.

THEN STOP BUTCHERING IT

/cough

haha.

I genuinely love and respect Wendy, but she is not easy to work with like this

and I am stubborn. lol

so maybe I'm just as bad. xD

I've given in that we can leave the meal choices out for now while we fix the bugs and balance some things. But when we're ready for playtesting, IT'S GOING BACK IN

Also, I'm really glad you like the sound of the project! That's the whole reason I'm doing this. I want to make something that is genuinely educational without being edutainment

i could concede, perhaps, that there might be some things to quibble over as being less "time-taking worthy" but meal choices are not one of them. that's such a huge point of tension in ANYONE with an unforgiving work-live balance, let alone grad students.

I already conceded that the grading/lesson planning was a bit too much (I'd noticed it too, so it wasn't just her), so now it takes an average of about 3-4 clicks to get through it instead of 6-7 per week

but meals, man.

MEALS.

basically, just made it take a larger chunk of time out in one go and filled the meter a bit more per-click

Yeah! I had it so you had 3 options, and we were gonna actually flesh it out to 4-5

cooking from scratch, which only cost $70 but took 30 hours

because it meant you were getting groceries, prepping and cooking, and then eating

like i think there's also an argument to be made about, like, the "brain space" taken up by actually having to THINK THROUGH those choices rather than just being like a click-farm. the emotional labour is also important.

me sitting there actually THINKING about the difference between cooking from scratch vs picking up some delicious pizza (whiiich now i want) is a whole other stat to deplete lol.

ordering in, which took I think $200? And only 15 hours. Delivery fees and tip plus higher prices for smaller portions, etc

and fast food, which took 20 hours (assuming you're out and picking it up yourself), cost $110 or $150 (can't remember) and took -1 off your wellbeing

Kit (our grad co-author) and I wanted to add quick cooking for a slightly pricier but less-time consuming option

for things like frozen pizzas, microwave dinners, ramen, etc

which VERY TRUE TO LIFE on tha tone.

And it was every week because it's easy to balance everything in week 1

it's a LOT harder when you're in week 10 and you're juggling grading, lesson planning, and you start getting the options to work on your seminar papers and portfolios for YOUR classes

yes!

Thank you for joining me on this soap box

I am very grouchy today. lol

you're allowed to be.

I'm trying very hard not to be controlling because it is a co-project and I don't want to do to Kit and Wendy what Wendy kinda did to me with the Unity version. But now I'm protective. xD

I also know she hasn't really been at an institution with grad students for awhile (her last professorial position was at a private university that didn't have graduate programs in Rhetoric), but lordy...sometimes I wonder if she actually remembers what grad school is like?

She put in an option in week 7 to join a committee for our service stat...and like...that doesn't make sense at all. You don't join committees mid-semester.

And you sure as hell don't join a committee in your first semester of being a grad student

unless you are ASKING that poor student to burn out

it's totally valid to revisit the original goals and make sure the mechanics are aligning with them — and to maybe have a frank conversation about what each of you thinks is "good" in gaming.

Poor Kit is just stuck in the middle on half these discussions. lol

Trying to make sure she's represented and NOT being forced to agree with one or the other of us

also this is making me want to get you in touch with a buddy of mine whose general area is digital capitalism and online creative work (influencers!) JUST BECAUSE he recently developed a 4th year seminar that similarly tried to blur the lines between Creative Project and Education by basically treating each class as a podcast that he was "inviting"

because Wendy and I are both strong personalities

his students onto and then he would listen, edit, and share the final product.

oooooh

that's really cool!

Y'ALL ARE JUST DOING SO MANY COOL THINGS RIGHT NOW IN ACADEMIA.

:3

anyway you guys might need to take a beat to stop and talk about the overall DIRECTION of the project rather than duking it out in proxy on these specific details.

It's been really interesting getting back into this gaming project, because it's helping me get excited in the research about my dissertation again, too

Yeah, I think that'll end up being a discussion once we get through the gameJam

our initial goal was to get Semester 1 put together and polished by the end of that (which is in about a week and a half)

and then we can submit it to places as a possible publication/figure out the larger scope/scale

We have already agreed to cut the scope down to 2 years instead of the full 5

so it just covers the course-work part of PhDland and not the comps exams and dissertation

There's plenty of arguments to be made in that time, and then it technically applies for both MA and PhD students...so I accept this

and hey.

But I honestly don't care if it takes 10 hours to play. lol. And that is 100% not acceptable to her. xD

so...this will be an ongoing struggle, I'm sure

ITERATION is not a bad thing. there's always room for more years later if this picks up momentum beyond its initial argument.

Yep!

My main thought is that, even if the game is long and half of the players/readers don't finish, if they can get the FEEL of time passing and the struggle and they see the citations that come up for whatever they DO play...they'll get the argumnet

*argument. Same as skimming a journal article

and if they get engaged in it, they'll play for however long without thinking about the time it takes

And, whatever else happens, I've learned how to do this now. If I want to make a new game with a different argument, I absolutely can