Making the Personal Game
Using Scratch
The remix aspect to this platform is what makes the process of sharing and creating knowledge less involved with pressures to adhering to certain standards of conduct in order to express an identity. This allows for different aspects of and angles to telling stories, especially qualities of the self that may be considered imperfect to show.
Exploring the narratives through the act of creating a remixed personal game can help the designer face the truth to the story as well as to formulate a discussion in a palpable manner.
Scratch Website (scratch.mit.edu)
Scratch Studio editor
Search for the type of game
After the account is signed up and set up, the quickest way to create a game on scratch is based on two methods: Remixing a published game by another user OR by following tutorials on youtube. Many educators have set up channels and have an "Educator" label on their user profiles on scratch.
Remix button on Scratch
The remix button on Scratch can be equated to the resampling technique introduced by Anna Anthropy, in her book 'Rise of the Videogame Zinesters'. This form of modification repurposes commercial game assets to pursue a creation act. These choices, from replacing art assets to reworking the code with aims to tell our personal narrative is an option to reflect the intentions in a personal game. This rethinking of what a conventional game structure entails redefines what it means to re-appropriate elements to address agency in representing identity.
Making ‘Aisha’
Searching for the right starter game– for this game I searched "maze starter"
Find and play the game that fits the purpose of narrative, then click Remix. (Remix button is located on the top right of the project page)
When published, Remix credit located above the Instructions and Notes/Credits
Learning through Making
Scratch promotes learning and making through code blocks. It invites people of all ages to join a community of "Scratchers" in cultivating a creative practice of using simplified code logic to create experiences not limited to games. The users who sign up and like games are also welcomed to reiterate and further creations through learning certain mechanics, as well as the remix option.
When the project is placed into the user's own maker studio, tutorials by scratch are also accessible as a tab for help. The editing tools inside the "costume" tab also allow for creating different stages to the game, such as levels or changing the colors of the background for each level.
Tutorials on scratch
Changing Costumes
Block codes
Assets used in this game
Why Scratch?
Scratch is a democratized space that encourages users to create projects that involve play, interactivity while also maintaining a community that promotes learning together. The projects posted by users then become a space likened to that of a post on Instagram, for example. The ease in also publishing and sharing creations also fits the interests of designers and creators who wish to simply send the message across on an accessible platform.
This platform was chosen as opposed to using Unity or Gamemaker, to promote an ease in both creating the work and also the circulation of the story itself. As a discursive artifact that uses democratized technology, I invite both reflections into creative representational practice and modes of representation that expands from the existing presence of Muslimah in other media disseminations.