Playing with difficult readings
The six current games are the ones we think work. In the Lab we ask questions and try things out: What would happen if you flew through a poem? What if you built a literal emotional roller-coaster? They are ideas on the way to working games, and at this stage they just have to show potential - and be fun. So we might see what happens if we drop some more coins in the slot and give Macbeth a couple more lives, or gobble our way through a paragraph of Dickens, or wonder how the old game Pong might help teach poetry or prose. Then hope the prototypes grow up into full, effective Phatiks games.
A Lab prototype starts by thinking differently about reading: what specific aspect of that complex process are we aiming to capture? Is it mechanical or cognitive? And which aspect of either?
We then ask: what might this reader response look like if you could see it? Can we do that literally or metaphorically? Then we try it, and try it again, until we have something that makes us laugh, or think, or start all over again.
We have high hopes but hope we go easy on the big claims. And while we don't limit our imaginations, we live by the limits our safeguards set. We don't collect pupil data, and nothing our users type will find its way to a hungry AI.
Fly through a poem as it scrolls towards you, moving as the poem moves you: Your position is your response. When you're through you can look at your flightpath, and compare your readings with experts or others or even your own re-readings.
First pass: As each lines comes, you veer right when the poem lifts you; right when it darkens. Second pass: drift one way when you feel the speaker's feeling, another if you think they're thinking.
Study your flightpath each time you fly, compare with other reader responses, or with your own responses to different poems. And every move is a chance to argue, reflect, and return to the text itself.
Readers can follow an expert reading from a teacher or a critic. Appearing as a guideline or ghost while you fly, it's a live teaching tool. Divergence means discussion and re-reading.
Surge through a range of moods, responding to the intensity and relevance of the mixed emotions that come your way. How you move depends on how moved you are!
If one of our games has made you read differently or think differently about language, let us know. And if you have any great ideas to share, we might be able to help you build them.