Fan Favorites is a table-top game that prompts players to share meaningful experiences about their favorite books, movies, TV, games and music. Led by Benjamin Thevenin in collaboration with students from Brigham Young University, the game is organized around open-ended questions intended to encourage players to share the funny, thoughtful, creative or moving experiences they’ve had with their favorite media. For example, players may be asked to share the significance of popular songs in their memories of past relationships, to devise a backstory for a unnamed character from a film or to describe how a book they read influenced their perception of a specific social issue.
The intention of the game is to promote more thoughtful, reflective engagement with media culture among the broader public. In order to ensure that the game achieves its objective, the development team has led regular focus groups in which participants (1) complete an initial survey in which they discuss their media habits, (2) play the game in a group setting, and (3) participate in a post-game conversation about how the game encouraged them to reflect on their experiences with media.
Also, the project itself serves as a means of helping the student participants practice uniting theory with practice, media education with media production.
