Designing Worlds

Designing Worlds analyses the work of emerging and professional video game designers and examines the relationship between design and environment in video games. With genres ranging from heroic competition to navigating a romantic entanglement, these contemporary designers have been using their ability to create whole worlds to redefine what a community is. With social distancing becoming a necessity to our communities, we explore how these games are designed or may be manipulated by their players to form new communities and relationships that would otherwise be impossible. Gamifying these often complicated experiences brings catharsis to the players who experience them. The realm of video games is one in which the fabricated realities allow for alternative outcomes and aesthetic and emotional modification.