Special Class Report:

Games for Change: Play Methods for Social Innovation

"Design for Social Innovation B" with Visiting Prof. Larissa Hjorth

本企画は、Larissa Hjorth教授（オーストラリア、メルボルンのRMIT大学メディアコミュニケーション学部特別教授、大阪大学CO デザインセンター招へい教授、http://www.larissahjorth.net）をゲストとして招き、COデザインセンターが「協働術」として提供する授業「Design for Social Innovation B」の一環として行われました。

In this workshop we reflected upon play methods from game design as a way to innovate socially.
The workshop explored the power of games to innovate, to provoke, to create empathy, and to change the way people see the world.
The workshop provided an overview of how games and play can be used as an innovative form of storytelling.
We talked about what types of games we like to play and why, especially in terms of the meanings and feelings we experience.

The group was asked to reflect upon the difference between playing and making games.
While playing games can help us to think about thinking, making games can help us to think about how others think.
Participants were then asked to design a game in response to their current research projects--ageing in Japan and gender inequity in Japan.

The first group, Pokémon G-OLD, toyed with the game Pokémon Go to create different forms of social inclusion.
They design levels in addition to the current format to make younger and older players interact more in physical contexts like near Poké stops.

The second group designed a game called The Age of Empowerment.
This game considered the role of game to provide women needing mentoring with different options to understand what skills they need to enhance.
Based on an "choose your own adventure" game, the online game consisted of a series of areas in need of exploration--social, legal, education, cultural etc.
Each of the areas had a series of key female role models.
Players could move through their stories and then write responses.
The game would be open sourced allowing for players to learn from each other's experiences.

（Visiting Prof. Larissa Hjorth）