Opening Empires and Puzzles today I was delighted to see a feature I’ve never seen before: a little QUIZ with rewards:
The quiz features one of the funny little goblin heroes, Kettle (wearing a chef’s hat, appropriately enough), asking you “which of the following would be best for the planet?” after a quick all-inclusive reminder that
We all are a part of the environment — if Earth fares poorly, so will we! Could you spare a moment of your time and help Kettle with this pop quiz?
Out of the three provided possible answers, the first is a cute jokey “Steal dragon eggs for Kettle” and the last is more pointedly incorrect (“Eat overcooked poisonous slime”), sandwiching the correct answer: “Replacing meats with veggies in your food once per week” between them.
How do I feel about this unusual little quiz feature? I LOVE IT!
I appreciate and admire Small Giant Games creating a palatable, quick, and manageable lesson encouraging people to see how it can be relatively easy to relieve some of the burden we put on the planet, and providing a nice reward to sweeten the pot. It gives people a sense of mastery within the game and an opportunity to experience more of it in real life with minimal effort.
It’s highly unusual for any of the games I play to include ANY content that could be perceived as political or controversial or even remotely edifying. I feel like I don’t have a strong opinion one way or another on the nearly-complete lack of socially-useful messages or content, other than understanding and appreciating being able to enjoy game play without any pressure or bullshit or abrasive or upsetting news-y thoughts or commentary. The only time it really shows up is in chat sometimes, but the mobile puzzle games I play on my phones really don’t center chatty interaction. Beyond a global chat that is easy to avoid and alliance or coalition chats, you have to go out of your way (get on discord, for example) to talk to other people about my games of choice.
I love that It’s easy to escape into match3 puzzle games without distracting or disturbing messages about current events, and when you do see that it’s from other players getting off topic, NOT a feature of the game itself or put there by the creators. I *like* that the games are designed to be played, and almost everything extraneous is designed for them to make money (which I am fine with, even as a broke person who plays for free 99.5% of the time). Even the in-game ads (and I watch a lot of them) are almost always devoid of political content, even right now during a super-heated election season.
Having said all of that, I’m a middle-aged person who grew up with public service announcements. I actually MISS the kinds of ads we saw in the seventies and eighties that were designed to make us feel shitty about littering or throwing burning cigarettes out of car windows. I think there’s a place for those kinds of messages and simple lessons, and we need more of it. The majority of smart people nowadays who are vocal about working towards positive change and doing damage control in the world are really TOO smart to be effective. They want to unpack every fucking microscopic detail about an issue to the point where it’s overwhelming to people instead of being truly informative, actionable or compelling. They are hypercritical to the point of demanding a level of perfection that is not only daunting, but truly unachievable. Their sense of urgency is hysterical and unlikely to provoke anything beyond fear and paralysis in the majority of listeners. None of that is a recipe for basic learning, let alone meaningful positive change.
I’m super impressed when ANYBODY these days can take or create a teachable moment, and focus on offering a bite-sized lesson that makes people feel good: good about themselves (capable, and able to answer correctly), good about the interaction (fun, not an exhausting or confusing waste of time), and good about the result (REWARDED!). It’s great when a person or entity with a platform can pick one thing to focus on and in mere SECONDS plant positive seeds in people.
The only other match 3 puzzle game I’ve seen a quiz-like feature on is Three KIngdoms & Puzzles with its regular “Academy” building feature giving a similar multiple choice option on topics ranging from game play to geography. Nothing as pointedly useful as this “we-all-share-this-planet AND you-can-make-a-difference-with-this-easy-suggestion” message.
On top of the rarity of the messaging with this pop quiz, the reward we get for answering this simple question is also noteworthy: getting an epic hero token (and a new avatar) for free is NOT a small or common thing. These are things you usually have to grind for if you want to get them in any predictable fashion without paying money. I think it sets up a positive association in people’s minds to invest in reading a message closely enough to be able to answer the question and receive the rewards – that makes learning more effective on top of “fun”, especially for the kinds of people who can’t afford to pay-to-play: young people, mostly, who are the most likely to also successfully apply the information with the least resistance.
I’m sure there are people who will be put off by Small Giant offering this feature, but I’m glad they did it and really curious about why, and when they might do anything similar again. It’s a small thing that I think can pack a huge punch, maybe especially when used so sparingly and/or with such a decent reward for the kinds of people likely to be most impacted by the suggestion.
Understandably, most people and platforms with influence and a broad reach who are succeeding WITHOUT any overt socially-conscious messaging are not going to step up and take a risk with anything that could be viewed as remotely off-putting or political, so it’s refreshing and inspiring when a business entity DOES. Like … this is not something that’s going to gain them new players/spenders or likely to even be noticed or remarked on outside of the game so it really only has the possibility of HURTING their relationship with the kinds of people who do spend money in game and are averse to such messaging (these people will bitch about anything, I swear) … AND the possibility of planting seeds of change and mastery in people who can and actually will make a difference in this world.
Seeing this in one of my favorite games today really inspired me and makes me feel hopeful. I love being reminded that many of these games have a global audience with players all around the world, and that when those of us who are able to make one different decision weekly, together we can have a profound positive impact on the world we live in and each other. “Community” is a word that’s bandied about far too often for my taste nowadays and is just a bunch of pretentious noise and hypocrisy a lot of the time, but stuff like this playful-but-pointed and GENTLE no-pressure prompt make me feel like it really is true that we live in a universal community and actually can make a positive and effective difference on a large scale when we focus a large group of people’s attention on one possible solution and make it feel easy and rewarding.