Devlog 6

These devlogs are mostly point form and basically reflect how I think about things. They document both what I learned and ideas that cross my mind. I make lists because my thoughts are usually in complete chaos, and organising them like that is a way to convince myself that it all makes sense.

Week 7: Devlog 6 (Mar 07, 2018)

Been thinking about my stories a lot. I’m considering going with several slides in order to keep the writing per slides to a minimum. I think the best way to handle this might be to give a couple facts (2-3 max) about the subject I want to touch, and then finish with a question.

Honestly, I feel the best way to do guerilla history, in the setting I have right now and with a wide audience in mind, is through questions. I feel like there’s a tendency in history to lead people to the “correct” answer. It’s fine, but I really think the most guerilla thing one can do is to push people to think for themselves. They might reach the “wrong” conclusions, or at least ones that I don’t agree with, but that’s a risk I am willing to take. I feel like there’s a tendency in assuming that our audiences are slightly dumb and need to be fed answers. I feel there’s a gentler, and less elitist, way of doing this.

Asking questions is my way of trying to instill critical thinking in my audience. In our postmodern practices of history, we keep saying that there’s no single truth, but rather a multitude of truths. Why then, would I try to feed the “correct” answer to my audience? Clearly, my questions will be leading somewhere. But I want the audience to make up their own opinion. Maybe some people might just overlook the question, or just think that it’s interesting and forget about it. Yet, on the off-chance that it triggers interest, I think it’s worth it.

I have a lot of material, I might have some more trivial stuff in there that I can still work in. Things like the list of Canadian companies and the date they were founded in. It might be truly challenging, but it would still suggest that game creation has been here for a while and is more than big studios or well-known indie developers.