Over the last few years we have seen the rise of "serious games" to promote understanding of complex social and ecological challenges, and to create passion for solving them. This project-based course provides an introduction to game design principals while applying them to games that teach. Run as a hands-on studio class, students will design and prototype games for social change and civic engagement. We will learn the fundamentals of games design via lecture and extensive reading in order to make effective games to explore issues facing society today. The course culminates in an end-of- quarter open house to showcase our games. Prerequisite: CS147 or equivalent. 247G recommended, but not required.
A game I enjoy is Dots, which uses sequences of narrative arcs. Based on the rules, players get very simple and obvious feedback depending on the action they have taken. If they connect dots of different colors, it makes an unpleasant noise and nothing happens. If they connect dots of the same color, those dots disappear, making more room. If they connect dots in a loop of the same color, all the dots of that color disappear and the game makes a “happy” sound. Each time dots are connected, it is an interaction arc, and each level is a sequence of these arcs. Since there are nearly a hundred levels, the game as a whole is a sequence of sequences of arcs.