A few days after I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree, I made a phone call to Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont. I was trying to decide what to do next with my life. I knew I wanted to continue my career as a student, but I wasn’t sure exactly in what area. I eventually ended up receiving a Master’s degree in Creative Writing, but at that moment, I was thinking of going in a different direction.
I called Champlain College because they had recently begun offering degrees related to the video game field: one in game programming and another in game design. The programming one didn’t interest me. By that point in my life, I’d experimented enough with programming to know I wasn’t good at it. Taking courses in game design, however, peaked my interest; hence, the phone call.
I researched before making the call. I knew the academic field called itself “ludology,” from the Latin, ludus, which means, games — i.e., ludology: the study of games. I had even purchased (and partially read) a few books on the subject.
I didn’t want to just study games though, and I didn’t just want to play them. I wanted to be a creator, an artist more than (and yet still kind of) an academic.
Speaking to a counselor from Champlain College, we both agreed it didn’t make sense for me to join their program in game design. First, it would have meant earning another Bachelor’s degree, and I had just finished earning one. Second, my current degree was so weird that many of my courses wouldn’t transfer over, meaning I’d have to take several general-ed courses in order to earn the second one. Instead of going through all that, the counselor recommended I look around for a program with a Master’s degree.
I thanked her and hung up. At which point, I stopped pursuing that particular future.
By that point, I’d already researched graduate programs for video games, and I’d learned a couple of things: all of the Master’s programs (at that time, at least) were Master’s in computer science, rather than in the arts, and I most definitely am an artist before I’m a scientist; and second, virtually all of the Master’s programs (at that time) were located in Texas, Florida, or Canada, and my future-wife and I had already decided to spend at least the next couple of years, if not the rest of our lives, in Vermont.
What had made Champlain so perfect, even more than its program, was its location. I’m sure the program had its flaws, but I would have found ways around them if it meant being able to stay in Vermont. With Champlain out of the picture, so was my dream of continuing my studies in video games.
I haven’t yet quite given up on my dream of creating a video game, however. Somewhere in my imagination, I picture myself sitting in a conference room spitballing game-design ideas with professionals who can turn those ideas into art and code, with me somehow making a contribution, first with my ability to project manage, and second with my knowledge and experience as a Master of Fine Arts.
Of course, outside of telling you about it right now, I’m doing exactly nothing to make that dream a reality.
In the meantime, and for the past seven years, I’ve taught the art of storytelling to a generation of middle-school, high-school, and college-age students. I’ve also led several courses in game design and used games in hundreds of lessons with my students, taking advantage of my ability to analyze their components in order to re-apply them to a given teaching situation. Believe it or not, I’ve even taught a couple of workshops in chess (despite being not very good at it myself).
In short, I’ve made games an everyday presence in my life: from the nightly video-game sessions I use to unwind, to the in-class games I play with my students, to the afternoon and evening games I play with my wife and daughter, to the weekend games I play with my friends.
In many ways, I’ve made games, and play itself, my religion, to the point where — no shit — I experience in games real, true moments of holy revelation.
If you see me playing a game, you might think I’m sitting around, doing nothing, but in reality, you’re witnessing a monk at prayer.
Sure, my kind of prayer may be a hell of lot of fun, but it beats repeating a series of words over a musty chain of rosary beads.
Game design may not be in my future. But games, and play, are very much a part of my life, and I treat them as (and consider them to be) an integral piece of what makes me me.