ABSTRACT
In the spring of 2020 as communities responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, a now-familiar noise rose up across the globe: the drippy “bwoop” of Zoom’s five-minute notification and the chirpy “ding-dong” upon entrance to a virtual Zoom room. All the beautiful noises, sounds, and poppy animations Zoom had designed soon started to become a bit too familiar as every class turned into a long Zoom meeting. Inventing games to be played on Zoom allows for the discovery of new ways of relating to the software, new connections with other users, and a greater understanding of the processes and possibilities of “productivity” apps. Discovering affordances in the digital world may be the most important and most difficult task of developing a twenty-first-century digital literacy. Making games can help people build those social bonds and critique the software they often uncritically rely on for everyday life.
