“Dinosaur Auntie Learns to Play”

dinosaurauntie2021
Jul 27, 2021
2 min read

It was like a surreal dream when Dinosaur Auntie’s school teachers told her she needed to play more games. This would have been a dream come true for any student. Except that Dinosaur Auntie is now almost half a century old, attending an Indie Game Development course with very young bright classmates a fraction of her age, and has to pass an assessment at the end of the course (one of the compulsory requirements under the 90% government grant scheme for Singaporeans 40 years old and above).

How to design and develop games when you don’t know what games people are playing these days? Dinosaur Auntie had a lot of catching up to do. She couldn’t recall exactly when she last played a game on her smart phone or computer. That must have been decades ago. She was once a fun-loving person. What happened to make her forget about the fun of playing games? Well, she became an adult, work became her game and games became associated with waste of time and money plus mental health issues such as addiction.

The irony of it all was that Dinosaur Auntie developed mental health conditions, even without playing games. Her Type A perfectionist tendencies of overworking and over worrying made her sick. The doctor prescribed PLAY and PRAY as part of the remedy for her mental health recovery.

So fast forward to 2021, Dinosaur Auntie is currently exploring digital games in its different genres and its effects on mental health, by studying online research, reading up on user reviews and of course through personal hands-on experience. She also attended a webinar on Monetization for Video Games which was an eye-opener!

The world of gamification has advanced tremendously to become a booming industry in serious fun. Through her course, Dinosaur Auntie also discovered that besides commercial games, there were also games for mental wellness and therapy. With the Covid-19 pandemic raging on, she also came across many online articles about why and how digital games should be embraced now as a healthy Covid escape and its benefits for mental health.

Has the world turned upside down or is it just economic forces at play? Is the world we live in extremely fickle, where bad can become good suddenly? Or is it just a matter of relativity? Or is there a season and time for everything? And for everything there will always be opposing views - for and against, pros and cons? Just like the debate on whether an apple a day keeps the doctor away.

Dinosaur Auntie might not understand the world but she knows herself. She is aware of her own mental health condition and her vulnerability to addiction with shopping, bubble tea and Netflix. She is also aware that “too much of a good thing can be a bad thing”, having personally experienced how over doing something can have a negative impact on one’s mental and physical health.

So armed with SELF-AWARENESS and SELF-CONTROL, she is learning how to play again and enjoying online games such as Candy Crush Saga, Art Puzzle, Wordscapes and Tsuki Adventure.