This week, I faced many trials and errors with Hack 2. For my first idea, I wanted to comment on the negative cultural effects of plastic surgery, namely on adolescents. More specifically, I wanted to comment on how the increasing popularity in cosmetic operations leads to unrealistic beauty standards and inherent medical concerns. I had hoped to transform the board game Operation by giving it a new skin or to customize dolls in a way that highlighted the drastic changes society seems to crave. However, as I began prototyping these ideas, I realized they were both more complicated to execute than I had anticipated. Moreover,, I found myself struggling to make the commentary feel clear to an audience that might not already be thinking critically about plastic surgery.

Then, I decided that I would create a Battleship-type game that comments on the loss of innocent lives that often comes with war. While it is still in development, I have a clearer sense of what works—and what does not. My original plan was to code an entirely new version of Battleship from scratch, but after many iterations, I realized the subversive effect I aimed for wasn’t coming through as strongly as I’d hoped, as I want some unexpected turn to occur in my game.

Now, I’m pivoting to reskinning a Battleship board, which will let me control the visual narrative more directly. My goal is to force players to confront the human cost of war in a visceral way, rather than just play a guessing game.

LF