Gaming the Poem: How a Video Game Teaches Users to Write Poetry

Way back in the day we found ourselves glued to the Nintendo playing hours of Metroid. If only Samus Aran could have taught us how to write poetry, our parents might have worried a little less. How times have changed since the '80s! According to Wired, there is now a video game that will teach users how to write poetry (and discover distant galaxies and whatnot along the way). From Wired:

We’re still a long way from Master Chief breaking into a Coleridge soliloquy. But game developers Ichiro Lambe and Ziba Scott have edged us a bit closer to that day with Elegy for a Dead World, a game they Kickstarted in October and released on Steam last month.

Elegy lets players write prose and poetry as they explore distant planets and dead civilizations. The player faces 27 challenges in three worlds, each riffing on a specific British Romance-era poem: “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley, “When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be” by John Keats, and “Darkness” by Lord Byron.

Transporting users from exploring dead planets to writing verse offers certain challenges, the designers discovered:

The real challenge was convincing players they could write. Someone might be a rocket scientist and member of Mensa, but freeze when asked to write creatively. Not to mention the fact that, upon completion of a level in Elegy, you have the option of publishing your work for thousands of other players to read—or build upon.

“The biggest challenge was making people feel safe and comfortable, but motivated to write at the same time,” says Scott.

Lambe and Scott figured out what it took to keep people from freezing up once they began to take an early version of Elegy to trade shows. In the early stages of the game, there were no prompts—just a blank slate. Players would be terrified, have no idea where to begin, and would feel helplessly uncreative.

Go to Wired to learn more and start gaming/versifying!