The Mechanic is the Message
When Brenda Brathwaite Romero’s 7-year old daughter came home talking about the Middle Passage, she clearly didn’t understand its significance to American and black history. Instead, she thought of those slaves as going on a cruise. Romero needed her to understand the truth.
As a long-time game designer, Romero (then Brathwaite) gathered together some game pieces and 3 x 5 cards and on the spot created a prototype for a game she called The New World. By the time she and her daughter were done playing the game, they were both crying. The historical events impacted them in a new way. Not only did they understand the facts, they began to gain a deeper respect and empathy for those players of history.
A innovator in the field of gamification, Brenda Brathwaite Romero has created several other games that also push the bounds of gaming. For instance, in the nondigital game Train players unknowingly deliver Jews to concentration camps. The Holocaust takes on another level of meaning for many players.
Romero also used a game to teach her daughter about family history with a game called Síochán leat. In this nondigital game, players trace Irish immigrants from Ireland to the West Indies and Canada. Once again, as players go through the events, they gain a type of firsthand knowledge of what events were like in history.
On her blog, Romero notes that “the game is signed in many ways and is highly autobiographical. It is my history and it also reveals my feelings about its present state.”
Romero made her first game at age 15 and has continued to be a major player in the game design industry. She was made famous for her work on Wizardry, a role-playing game. She also played a role in designing and developing Def Jam: Icon, Playboy: The Mansion, and Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes.
Romero is highly decorated. She earned the 2013 Women in Games Lifetime Achievement Award from Microsoft because of all her contributions to the game industry. Romero was also named one of the Top 10 Game Developers in 2013 by Gamasutra. According to Gamasutra, she was named “because of her words.” Indeed, Romero actively promotes the significant potential gaming has to elevate the human spirit.
Romero will be speaking at Game Developers Coference, March 17-21, 2014, giving a lecture called “Jiro Dreams of Game Design.” Currently, she shares her insights at University of California, Santa Cruz, where she leads the Masters in Games and Playable Media program.
