Abstract:

Games as cultural artifacts have profoundly transmedia features within their structures. Involving audiovisual interaction, narrative interpretation, complex rule systems bound to specific ludic activities producing endogenous value. The usage of these features turns them into a media of change which elaborates a liberated movement of players’ actions and shapes them as cultural and communicative artifacts which foster an alternative way of thinking promoting counterfactual situations.

Digital games affordances as educative media carry numerous capabilities, which unfortunately remain idle due to the lack of educational interest and the perpetuation of the belief that provide debased and unreliable knowledge. Using the players’ natural curiosity for exploration as a starting point, this alternative learning way encourages players to seek, wonder and stare the game space. By examining the game under a designer’s lens, players attempt to interpret the in-game relationships of objects, people and space altogether, which fabricate the game narrative. The aim of this process is to exhort players to form self-reflective inquires based on the game narrative into creative observations and unrestricted viewpoints through the concept of deterritorialization; thought-provoking way of shaking off the obvious, while getting accustomed with a rhizomatic way of thinking in search for interconnecting premises, opportunities and lines of flight.

Raising the inquiry how a digital game is able to assist students as players comprehending conceptions such as in-game space; as well as the notions of abstract machines, deterritorialization and rhizome, through a vivid play session. Setting off from design fundamentals towards more demanding subjects like the deconstruction of ludic space, the temporal aftereffects of the playspace and the character’s contribution to the narrative of the game. This educational journey under a different light, arises the opportunity of proposing a critical way of thinking into discovering recognition pedagogy; while implementing philosophical questions through the experience of playing a game.

The present paper constitutes an educative approach, formed and applied based on the context of the course “Didactics of Art and Modern Technologies” of the Ionian University for acquisition purposes of the Pedagogical and Didactical Sufficiency. This educative approach aimed at assembling a question-led learning trail elaborating discovery learning and exploratory methods through the use of the student chosen video game title “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey”. The purpose of this research is for students to reach the deconstruction of the notion of space and its significance based on their individual perspectives as players, which are allowed by the usage of video games as a medium with probable interpretations between the structures of play and narration.

Keywords:

Digital games, education, game space, critical thinking, cultural media.