(The picture shown above shows a scene in the Game of Life.)
We used the Game of Life as an example to illustrate Bogost’s procedural rhetoric and its principles. Traditionally, people like to use the actual game board edition but we used the kindle version of the Game of Life instead. It is a semi-realistic game about walking through life events and the purpose of the game is to accumulate the most wealth.
The main argument of the game is that the choices made in the early stages of one’s life will have a ripple effect throughout the remainder of their journey. This will determine what choices are available to them and how one will lead his or her life until the end. One example of early choices affecting the rest of your life is the game’s opening decision to either go to college or start a career. Starting a career allows you to make money early on and avoid having to pay large amounts of student debt. However, choosing to go to college presents higher paying jobs with more perks.
Further, the main argument of the game is life has many unpredictable ups and downs. The Game of Life does an excellent job of showing how unpredictable events can really affect your course of existence. For example, the event of having a child (or twins) comes at random and can then make the rest of the game very expensive. Other events such as having a midlife crisis, having your house flood, or alternatively getting a promotion at your job all cause disruption, frustration, and surprise to players. One can also say that some aspects of life is based purely on chance because of it. There is just no way to expect what events will interfere or benefit in our lives.
The elements of procedurality in the game helps one understand the process of life. The Game of Life helps by laying out the general route a person can take. It begins with the choice of attending college/university or pursuing a career, getting married, buying a house, starting a family, and other achievements until retirement. Nevertheless, in between these events there are unexpected misfortunes. In the game, the players must use the spinner and this really aids with the randomness of when these unforeseen events can happen in real life. This helps the game to be more realistic. In addition, if it is combined with the best interactivity possible then it moves even closer to real experience. It is important to mention that the interactivity element must be relevant to the goals of the game, or it will dilute the effectiveness of the persuasion. As Bogost argues, “the closer we get to real experience, the better.” He is directly referring to the vivid spectrum. However, he doesn’t mean it has to be virtual or to completely recreate the world to be persuasive; he’s implying that the steps involved in the games is what actually makes it rhetorically influential.
Another element is the idea that early choices affect the rest of one’s life is reinforced by the player’s freedom within the parameters of the game. There are decisions that present players with very specific choices; those choices then define how later events are carried out. Players are forced to deal with what happens, just like people in the real world are forced to deal with real situations.
Overall, we believe there is procedural rhetoric in the Game of Life because there is some seriousness in the nature of life, but it’s not clear to us if it’s strong enough to “support or challenge our understanding of the way things in the world do or should work” as Bogost might say to be effective.
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