I think this is an important distinction between the “third level of self-awareness” and “level 2 self-awareness.” When I say “third level,” I mean a third of the way down the scale of awareness. At the lower end are the things people think about and act on.
Basically, people have a hard time recognizing that they’re making decisions that they’ve not done themselves. For instance, I’ve seen a lot of people talk about the level of awareness they have that they’ve “gotten it” on a particular topic.
I think that the word “level” is a mis-use of the word. People think of awareness as a stage of a person’s life: like a developmental stage of a person’s life. But while we do develop awareness, this is only a subset of the full thing. It is, however, a stage.
The word ‘awareness’ is a loaded word to begin with. It can mean different things to different people. To me it generally means that we have some level of information about our behavior, or that we are aware of some kind of action. I think people who use the word ‘awareness’ to mean something different than what it generally means have not really grasped that you can have a level of awareness without having any cognitive ability at all.
To me, awareness of what we as individuals do or don’t do is the same thing as awareness of our beliefs. We all probably know that we’re not supposed to be playing with guns, but when we see a gun we have no more cognitive ability than if we didn’t see.
I think a lot of people in the videogame industry get confused from the first level of the ‘awareness’ movement. They think that if they don’t know what they are doing, they are stupid. They are not; it is a skill that comes with a lot of practice. I am always amazed when I watch a professional player get a little too creative and try to make something cool in the game.
The main point of this chapter is that the main thrust of the awareness movement is to create awareness in the game. To make it work, the players need to be able to see the whole game. They need to be able to see that the game has an agenda and is going to get a lot of attention. It is not enough to just make up for the lack of awareness.
So as a side note, most of the time when you start your game, you have to be able to say to yourself, “I’m gonna make you feel this’s important.” That is the reason I recommend this chapter.
So when you create your characters, their main purpose is to create awareness for the game. So when you make a character, you have to be able to say to yourself, This is a character you will make. That’s not enough. That’s not enough for you to be able to see the game’s agenda clearly. So as a side note, some of the best games come from the perspective of the player who wants to play the game, and that is why I recommend this chapter.
Some of the best games come from the perspective of the player who wants to play the game, and that is why I recommend this chapter.
