On the Other Side: Analyzing Identity and Crisis Through Ludic Inquiry

This study utilizes a form of scientific methodology, ludic inquiry, to analyze a role-playing case study. Ludic inquiry considers games as experiential artistic research questions, and player behavior as a form of research data responding to that question. Thus, it is an art-scientific methodological form, with a unique capacity to approach significant topics of meaning. Games feature interactive fictions, whose rules and procedures can rhetorically be analogized to research questions, where players’ actions, thoughts and feelings within the fiction form a type of research answer of the experiencing and meaning-making they as individuals have within the gameplay. Live action role playing games in particular feature ambiguous moments where players infer boundaries and create their own norms and rules, demonstrating an even deeper insight into their reactions to the questions asked within the game. This methodology was applied in the creation and analysis of the artistic live action role playing game On the Other Side: Who We Become After We Move Abroad, which intentionally asks the question, “How does identity change as a result of experiencing a crisis?” The game represents a double crisis, migration and fascism, and simulates how changes in the socio-material context affect personality traits. Our findings suggest that the characters’ familial relationships were a response to crisis throughout the game, playing a strong role in significant events such as worker riots, choosing who to save from fascist violence, and the bending of the game’s rules. The results also indicate that the experience of crisis depended on one’s level of comfort—a crisis was only experienced when it entailed a sense of discomfort, whether it was social feedback, labor, migration, uncomfortable seating, or being asked to show political allegiance. This discomfort often became incorporated in how valuable the characters felt. This study indicates that ludic inquiry can be used to guide game design, analyze acts of play, and inspire real-world research perspectives. Future research could further develop ludic inquiry in other topics, players and contexts, genres, formats, and using other data collection methods, as well as focus on the role of family and discomfort within immigration experiences in the face of oppressive movements.