rafaelpmurphy

I am a life long gamer and aspiring game designer. My goal is to create experiences that challenge participants views by forcing them to confront difficult choices in unfamiliar contexts. I am an unorthodox game designer in that I have spent the vast majority of my professional career in the fields of international development and diplomacy working for the US Peace Corps, US Department of State, USAID, and an international non-profit with almost a decade spent abroad. I bring a deep experience of examining extreme intersections of diverse cultures, alternative systems of government, and the human experience first hand. I pivoted away from international development in 2017 to refocus my talents and skills towards American communities and now work to improve equity, transparency, and efficiency in my county. My strong skills in project and program management, budget analysis and management, policy analysis, leadership, coaching and mentoring, team building, and strategic planning all directly translate as assets to a game design team. I have also been pursuing an MA in Game Design part-time at American University gaining experience and skill in game design and development (PICO-8 and Unity). My game design focus is on Meaningful Games with prototype games addressing meaningless bureaucratic competition, cross-cultural skill development, the non-profit funding context, and attempts to undermine the journalists who broke stories leading to the #metoo movement. I also have a BA in Creative Writing creating characters and contexts in science fiction or fantastical worlds that that reflect and refract key aspects of our own. I am especially interested in the "world building" of alternative cultures and political systems to explore how people would logically work within them (or what circumstances would lead to people to logically create them). This exploration of what a logical person would do in a given context (especially ones very different than our own) is what makes me passionate about game design. Papers Please, This War of Mine, and Beholder are very much inspirations of the questions I hope to elicit from the games I plan to make.