Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection

This creative honors thesis explores game design by going through the game design experience to produce a prototype of an original board game. From being a casual board game designer to creating one herself, here is a re-account of the experiences it took to design Descent into the Deep. The game design process involved intensive research of game mechanics, learning design tool skills for prototyping, and playtesting to create a playable original board game. Descent into the Deep is a hand management/path game that has players balance their resources to stay alive while considering the opportunity costs of their decisions to earn the most research points. Descent into the Deep has players push their luck and brains to collect research cards for points or offense and defense attacks against other players. The documentation includes the game's rule book, design process, and journal.

In September 2022, production company Netflix released their limited series Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, a series that focuses on the life and crimes of infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Shortly thereafter the series would become one of the most successful series in Netflix history. However, this popularity did not come without extensive criticism from viewers, critics, and family members of Dahmer’s victims. This project seeks to evaluate the mass appeal of Netflix’s Dahmer through the theoretical framework of Carl Jung’s collective unconscious and the shadow archetype. Scholars have previously tried to explain the appeal of true crime as a genre without reaching a consensus. This project analyzes the existing explanations for the appeal of true crime along with why these explanations are unsatisfactory when seeking to explain the appeal of Dahmer, followed with an analysis of how the shadow engages with Netflix’s Dahmer through the ability to become secondarily conscious through Dahmer and the projection of one’s shadow qualities onto Dahmer.