The Dictatorship Simulator: Analysis

This piece was written for my Writing and Research course, in which we learned about forms of academic writing and research through creating a game to model a real-world phenomenon and then recording and analyzing the results of playtesting. I chose to create a game modeling authoritarian power dynamics, running three simultaneous playtests over a span of around three weeks, which I was then tasked with analyzing in an IMRaD-style paper.

 

This was an incredibly enjoyable paper to write, and I believe that, while my inexperience does show in some cases, it ultimately demonstrates my ability to capture important details and deeply analyze a large quantity of information. My presentation of the data is somewhat weak (though I did attach spreadsheets and notes in the appendix), but I believe that the data was synthesized into an overall coherent discussion section, and the piece remains shockingly readable despite its length and the complex nature of the game itself.