Tomb Raider-Podcast reflection

Tomb Raider was the second game Samsara and I chose to do a podcast over. It was quite interesting since this was the first time I had played the game or even heard of it. I usually do not play action and adventure based games. I actually really enjoyed playing this game and learning about its background.

Samsara and I linked the game to the word “reverence”, which we took in different direction than Ian Bogost’s definition in “How to Do Things with Videogames”. We interpreted the meaning of reverence to be a sign of deep respect while Bogost related the word to church. Though taking a different route in definitions, we focused on the developments of the game that displayed reverence and unique feature of having a female protagonist in the game. Our goal was to highlight the deep respect people have for Tomb Raider and uniqueness of the having a female protagonist. Samsara and I both took away that having a female protagonist was empowering to women, showing they could anything that men could. However, we also presented the idea that the game could also be demeaning to women because of way that the protagonist was depicted. In the end, we concluded there was no one right answer and that it was up in the air as to how one would interpret it. In the given time we had, I believe we were able to talk about everything we wanted to.

The process in creating this podcast went fairly smoothly. Samsara and I didn’t have any schedule conflicts and were able to easily meet up and work on the podcast. This podcast production to me was much better than the first. We had a lot more time to work on it and definitely sounded less scripted than our first podcast. It definitely helped to already have experienced creating one podcast previously to create another. It also was helpful to listen to other groups podcasts that recorded before and after us. It gave insight as to what we should or should not do. One of the biggest changes we made in our second podcast was to talk more freely rather than having a script to read off of. It allowed the podcast to flow and seem more natural.

A few lessons that I took from this was digital citizenship/digital identity and collaboration. Though I did not do a lot of editing, I was able to learn to use Garage Band to some extent. I really did enjoy working with Samsara. She was an excellent partner, and I believe we worked together well. Both these lessons that I took away can be applied in other classes and situations in the real world. Collaboration is something everyone will have to do in their lives whether they like it or not, and I believe its skill that everyone should have. Today with how far technology has advanced, having some sense of digital citizenship/identity will help.

As a learner,I feel like I am improving. I learned a lot from the previous podcast we created. For this podcast, it was done more in advanced and felt more planned out. Suggestions I would have for my peers would to be plan further ahead. Also one thing that I really liked that we did this time was recording stuff before we went in to talk to Professor Morgen. It allowed us to figure out what we had and didn’t have before getting critiqued by Professor Morgen.

This was the last podcast we had to make for this semesters English class. I think the outcome was rewarding because I was able to learn many things from this experience.