An open board game sits on a table waiting to be played. Yellow, green and blue squares form weaving paths between red stop signs. Stacks of little cards line one side.
On another side, one purple die rests in an open velvet-lined hexagonal box. Cody Pietro, founder of the educational consulting organization CreatEd and a former teacher, picks it up and rolls a one. Several times over.
“Oh my God, three ones?” Pietro said. They roll again. It’s another one. “ Is this weighted?”
Each roll of the die signifies a year. The title of the game is “So You Want to Be an American?”
“This is a civics board game that takes players through the U.S. immigration system,” Pietro said. “It's an empathy-building game and also exposes people who might not otherwise encounter any element of this system to the process and all of the detailed elements of what that looks like."
At the start of the game, each player draws four cards that shape their character — nation of origin, motivation for immigrating, family members in the U.S. and their status, and education and skills. From there, players decide which path to immigration they choose.
“I think that this is an issue that is a very hot button topic right now, and people have a lot of thoughts and feelings about it, but not a lot of facts,” Pietro said. “And this is an opportunity to sort of get people engaging with some factual information before any of the defensive hackles come up and let them experience it and figure out what they think for themselves.”
The game is one of many showcased in the “Arcade Zone” of The Serious Play Conference that is unfolding in Rochester this week at St. John Fisher University. Here, game design goes beyond mere entertainment.
“I really believe that we need to build empathy, and we need to exercise our empathy,” said Elena Savenko, cofounder of Toronto-based Pomsky Games. “And games is the best way to do so.”
Savenko is readying to release a new game by early next year called “The Light Within,” which follows the story of a girl who struggles with mental health.
“It's a puzzle game where you solve nice little things, but you also teach (sic) how to overcome some mental health struggles like PTSD, eating disorder, depression, anxiety ... through real world techniques that ... you can bring into your own life and use them in your life,” she said.
For Paul Darvasi, executive director of the Seriously Play Conference, that kind of utility speaks to the philosophy behind his work. For him, there is power in using play and games to drive learning and build connection.
“There's a huge opportunity for play and games to positively impact a world that is currently needing positive impacts,” Darvasi said. “I see positive social change as something that advances what I would call the inalienable rights of human beings, and that would be a respect of freedom of the individual, a respect for the world that we live in, philosophy based on kindness ... and thinking about the world as a collective where we have to look after each other.”
The Serious Play Conference is in its 18th year, and this marks the first time it is taking place in Rochester. Darvasi said with the confluence of play-based cultural institutions like the Strong National Museum of Play and Millennium Games, studios, and game development programs like the one at Rochester Institute of Technology, it’s likely to return.
“Rochester is increasingly becoming a center for play and games and that is on the forefront of innovation in playing games,” he said. “I think what this conference does, it's almost a broth that consolidates all these different organizations and institutions, brings people together and intensifies what they're learning, what they're thinking about.”
