“Smite” Reflection
In this podcast episode, Austin(producer) and I(assistant producer) analyzed Smite, and the accuracy in its portrayal of mythological deities. Austin has an extensive knowledge of this game, and was pretty set on the topic of our podcast from the start. But we needed to establish the thesis statement and argument. We began our development process by playing the game through, listening to previous podcasts, and doing some background research. We discussed what we liked or needed to improve, and what we definitely wanted to include content-wise. After a lot more discussion with each other and Dr. Morgen, we were able to solidify our thesis statement for this podcast. To write the script, we continued to discuss and put down the main ideas, along with incorporating the research we had found from before. While some of the content was scripted out, we wanted to make it more anecdotal and conversational — so a lot of the script was simply bullet points to expand upon. Since Austin was taking a class that pertained to our topic, he had the idea to interview his professor for some insight on the particular deities we were talking about. I think this interview aspect was a perfect addition to the podcast! After talking out ideas and revising if necessary, we recorded the podcast and Austin was able to put the edited interview, background music, and other necessary audio aspects over the recording into audacity.
Our primary goal of this podcast was to express the importance of the game’s characters(like Kali or Bastet) staying true to their original lore, and how this contributes to the overall gaming experience. I think these initial discussions we had around the content of the game allowed us to create such a cohesive and interesting argument/conversation for the podcast. Because we had rich discussion before recording, we were able to deviate from the script at certain points, and add humor or anecdotal aspects that made it more engaging for listeners.
Since it was the first podcast I ever worked on, I think I underestimated how much time I needed to devote to developing it. For the future, it would be best to give myself more time to come up with ideas, discuss, and put it all together. Other than this, I’m proud of our result!
Developing this podcast episode reinforced the learning outcome of “writing as a process.” It takes thorough discussion, research, brainstorming, revision, editing, and above all, patience. I enjoyed being able to use a different genre/type of writing that differs from the traditional, literary writing. It was refreshing to be able to utilize collaboration and conversations, and establish a more casual tone in our work. Overall, this was an enjoyable experience that has given me new resources, skills, and strategies for the future.
