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Elliott Blaser
Professor Doctor Angela Miss Ph.D
UWRT 1101
22 September 2016
Dat Me
At the age of three I had killed my first turtle. However, it was not a real turtle but one
from Nintendos Super Mario Bros. Fascinated with the game, I loved how I could be in
control of a character and not just be watching one in a movie. I wanted to make my own story
and my own levels; so from that point on I began a long pilgrimage towards the art of game
design. Along that journey I learned how to code, make games, and apply those aspects to my
daily life.
When my dad would come home from work I would riddle him with strings of questions.
How do I make a game?, How do I code?, Can you teach me how to make a game?
Usually he would say to read a book about it or find out on the internet with our dial-up
connection. But one day I clearly remember at the age of seven. My dad set aside all of his
current projects and sat me down. He had noticed I was really sticking with this game design
topic and decided to teach me all he knew. So he taught me the most basic coding language there
was: C. I read and followed through hundreds of different tutorials; making the most original of
games like pong and tic-tac-toe. I shared each and every little aspect I had completed to my dad.
Parallel to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie when she says I was also an early writer, and when I
began to write, about at the age of seven, stories in pencil with crayon illustrations that my poor

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mother was obligated to read. Forcing a parent to praise their kid for minor goals. But that
praise pushed me further and further down the path.
By the time I was in middle school I came to a realization. A realization that would
change my view of games. I had noticed that my friends and I would say a game would be good
or bad but never say why. I had dished out criticism but never made it constructive. So from that
point on I decided that whenever I had pointed out a flaw in anything, I would tell myself how I
could make it better. This shifted my view of game design from being the main designer to a
more specific role: quality assurance. At the time I didnt know that job existed but I knew what
it meant. Similar to Sherman Alexie and their understanding of what a paragraph was. Alexie
reveals that they Didnt have the vocabulary to say paragraph, but I realized that a paragraph
was a fence that held words This knowledge delighted me. When I played through games I
would often watch the end credits and see who and how many people designed the game, what
names I recognized, and what roles they took. I saw that there would be tens of people under
every category. Often in every game there would be only two to four names under the job
Quality Assurance. For a while I thought they were beta-testers who looked for bugs in the
game. Upon further research they did much more. They were the critics. The ones cynical
enough to spot a flaw from a mile away then describe how to fix it. Fixing things what I decided
to do not just relating to games but apply to real life. Whats the point of saying something is
wrong and not help out a little? Why does Donald Duck never wear pants?
For my sixteenth birthday my girlfriend gave me a gift which I hold dear. She had paid
for me to go to my first game design classes. There I worked in a team of four, this team
consisted of a project leader, artist, musician, and programmer. The key lesson was that every
member of the team had to rotate roles. I couldnt be JUST quality assurance. I had to learn

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about every aspect of game design; not just my specialty. It was to understand what each member
of a game design team would go through, what qualifications they would need, and how
restricted they are by each other role. Adichie describes that The consequence of the single story
is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It
emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar. Previously I only had a single
story of what I thought each other role did. Once I had donned the role myself it gave me a
broader view of what my expectations should be.
At the age of twenty, my expectations shifted fully after a deep conversation with a good
friend. My conclusion was that if I set my expectations too high, I are setting myself up for
disappointment. If set too low, I would end up stressing out and become miserable. Everyone has
their own work flow and lives to deal with. The world is like a game design team. The whole
idea of the game doesnt revolve around me, it revolves around how I can work with other
people. As time when on I had formulated some game ideas and started working as a
programmer on a game design team. I wanted to work with these people but did not want to give
out my secret recipe freely. I would lightly test them by giving hints towards what I think should
be done but not doing all of the work for them. Sort of like the pass-back effect from the
Touch-Screen Generation reading. Where it defines it as a name that captures well the
reluctant zone between denying and giving. Through this method I structured how I helped
people closely to how I structured my code. It did not matter what path was taken as long as we
got to the end.
As I become more literate in game design I become closer to understanding giving the
benefit of the doubt. A task I was once short of; a single story which I could only tell from my
side. The experiences I connected to time and time again would push me along my path. Whether

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it was the heartfelt guidance from my father, cold criticism of a game, the collection of many
stories, or a conversation with a dear friend, I will always be able to link my life to what I love
doing: shaping games.

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Works Cited
Adichie, Chimamanda. The danger of a single story. TED, TED Conferences, LLC, Oct.
2009. Web. 30 Aug 2016.
https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story
Alexie, Sherman. Superman and Me. Los Angeles Times, 12 Apr. 2011,
http://articles.latimes.com/1998/apr/19/books/bk-42979
Rosin, Hannah. The Touch-Screen Generation The Atlantic, Apr. 2013,
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/04/the-touch-screengeneration/309250/