Back when my only worry was feeding my Nintendo dogs, back when school wasn’t stressful and back when online learning was not really a thing, I was addicted to my Nintendo DS. This is the first memory I have of anything gaming related. I was gifted by Santa my light pink Nintendo Lite DS back in 2009 or 2010 and was addicted immediately! One of my favourite games to play was called playground which had originally been released in 2007. It’s a forgotten treasure for me.
Looking at my DS and this game more than 10 years later, memories and nostalgia come running back and when thinking about proposing an analytical study for the game, my first thought is to analyse this game through the lens of nostalgia and psychology.
Gathering a small group of people who played this game during its prime time and having them play the game together a decade on whist providing their feedback and nostalgic memories would be the best way to analyse a game now only a part of our childhoods.
Whether the group enjoyed the game and was addicted to it like I was, or they disliked the game because they felt they were not coordinated enough (I don’t remember being a pro), a small focus group would be best suited to bring up memories and feelings towards the game.
Questions to start up conversations within the focus group about the game would include questions such as:
These questions would introduce a conversation between the participants which would allow for similarities and differences to be identified from the experiences the participants felt during the time they actively played the game and the more recent time they played the game.
With the similarities and differences now identified, the analysis would begin to conclude how the participants felt and feel about the game.
So, this is how I would analyse my forgotten game.
Would you analyse your forgotten game in a similar way? Let me know!
-Olivia
Olivia Lopez 