You, A Very Meaningful Game

You is a game about play and the illusive pursuit of meaningful play. Each level of the game is about problem solving a space for You to meet objectives while making sense of the in-game content. Using the player character, You, the player is both making meaning out of nonsense and finding meaning where it is absent. The game is designed as a light-hearted critical reflection on the intersection of narratology and ludology.
Borrowing from the rhetoric of research on narrative, play and the illusive pursuit of meaningful play, the game takes as its subject, You. A character who is backwards, if it not traveling forward. A character that moves playfully, although permanently bound to the awkward limitations of its unmasked pursuit of meaning and place. 


The player must put You in its place. At times, the player must manage You and I in simultaneous concert, in opposition or in cooperation. Each level of the game is about problem solving a space for You to meet objectives while making sense of the in-game content. From this mechanic, the player is both making meaning out of nonsense and finding meaning where it is absent.
The game is organized around the notion of a game poem, where rhetorical device is a combined application of narratology and ludology. The game is not designed as a serious experience, but instead as a critical experience in meaning making in play. 
 Players must play with You, I and Them in the immutable structure of meaning making that forms the pseudo challenge of the game. 

It is the 10th game in the Critical Gameplay collection, a 4 year project to offer alternative ways to play. The project has been displayed at more than 20 venues around the world. A Critical Gameplay game is valued in intellectual profit.
You is an art game and distributed as such. No more than 20 Android versions will be sold – after which the game will be removed from Google play. It is limited edition meaning created by the artist/designer Lindsay Grace.
About the Artist:
Lindsay Grace is a professor, game designer, programmer and artist. In the August of 2013 Lindsay will be an Associate Professor in Game Design at American University. Formerly Lindsay was the Armstrong Professor of Creative Arts within Miami University's Armstrong Institute for Interactive Media Studies, directing both the Persuasive Play Lab and the Games Center within the Armstrong Institute for Interactive Media. Miami University is a top 25 game design school as ranked by Princeton Review.

Lindsay’s career includes:

• 81 courses taught in 9 years (excluding TA and independent study)
• 25+ game art exhibitions in North America, South America and Europe
• 25+ publications including book chapters, academic publications and articles
• 30+ presentations, panel discussion leads, and invited speaking engagements in Asia, the Americas and Europe