Learning about values in indie games: Cart Life analysis

Abstract

This work investigates the possibilities of the "indie" video game as a way of learning values ranging from freedom to justice, including inclusion, equality, privacy, security, trust and diversity, in the context of the digital revolution. In this sense, designers and developers activate their personal "critical play", weaving narrative and expressive networks capable of affecting an active and receptive player in an interactive virtual scenario, populated by beings committed to the social vindication of less favoured groups. The text applies the VAP methodology (Flanagan and Nissenbaum), which systematizes the incorporation of social issues in the creation of games with a supposed social conscience. The questions asked by the VAP method aim to answer, first, the research of values in the context of a technical design with scientific rigor; second, the integration of these values in the design of the "software" and, finally, the experimentation through the tasks proposed by the game design. This methodology will be applied to the video game entitled "Cart Life", a piece in which an artistic design with an independent vocation converges with the exploration of values through which to learn concepts such as personal autonomy, inclusion or gender equality.