In the second half, though, something clicked. I introduced my Bag, Beg, Big, Bog, Bug phonics game<\/a> and ran her through variant one to eight. That is to say, she learnt how to transcribe three- and four-letter words in about 30 minutes\u2014from nothing! The activity’s cyclic scaffolding<\/a> gave her the confidence to power through to the more difficult challenges. The change in her behaviour was immediately apparent. She stopped giggling, stood upright, listened attentively, and did exactly as told. It was as though she was under hypnosis\u2014which is, of course, true, as she was under the spell of a well-crafted mental challenge. She stayed focused for the remainder of the lesson until her parents arrived for the parent’s meeting, where she skipped out of the classroom as her usual self.<\/span><\/p>\n
In early 2008 I stumbled across the Critical-Gaming blog<\/a>. Reading the site used to give me headaches. I knew it was probably \u201cgood for me\u201d, though, because the author Richard Terrell could articulate aspects of games that I didn’t even know existed before, and he supported his theories with a wealth of examples from popular games. After reading the site on and off for a few months I decided that I had to knuckle down and give his work the close reading it deserved. At the time I had just moved abroad to China to study and was lonely and isolated. Every couple of days I would walk down to the nearby, smoke-filled internet cafe and stash a handful articles onto a USB (enough to last me for the following few days) and then return home to read them alone. Richard’s articles were as eye-opening as they were challenging to read, but I persevered nonetheless.<\/span><\/p>\n
One day the two of us got into an argument which I could never hope to win, whether Smash Bros. is a fighting game or a party game. Richard whooped my butt and I was rightfully embarrassed. Soon after\u2014and despite feeling bitter over the verbal bruising\u2014I accepted the truth presented to me: if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. I studied up on Richard’s theories and began incorporating them into my writing. My initial efforts and the ongoing support from Richard led me to write my first book, Game Design Companion: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4<\/em><\/a>, which was the biggest struggle of my life. It took me years of hesitation to accept the ideas of someone who clearly knew much more than me, but such is the nature of learning. As life continually reminds me, good learners accept their role as a relative amateur and rather than put their pride on the line, they put faith into the knowledgable other.<\/span><\/p>\n