For my dissertation, I developed a serious game entitled Level 101: A Video Game About Video Games, a playable video game that explores, explains, and interrogates the video game in order to understand the medium through a methodology of play. In doing so, Level 101 puts disparate elements of Game Studies into practice due to its branching paths, introducing players to three distinct frameworks for understanding video games: 1) history, 2) design, and 3) theory. Each of these three branches features five stages designed to educate players about the video game medium, as well as encourage critical reflection on video games and the process of playing through them. The primary audiences are twofold: college instructors who will use and assign the video game as a lecture supplement, and college students who would play through the video game. This is accompanied by a traditional dissertation component that addresses several issues: 1) historical and cultural contextualization; 2) theoretical and methodological investments; 3) a summation of the project's critical contributions; and 4) a reflection of the development process. Level 101 seeks to begin filling in a crucial and overlooked pedagogical gap in Game Studies through uniting play and learning via digital means, but only in conjunction with other aspects of traditional learning. As such, Level 101 sits at the intersection of three distinct areas of inquiry: Game Studies, Pedagogy, and Digital Humanities. By drawing not just from Game Studies, but from other corollaries in such disparate fields as comic studies, literary studies, film studies, among others, Level 101 also holds the potential for further experimentations with playable methods of academic engagement and alternative scholarship.
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