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.
One of my favorite games is Slay the Spire. The main loop is 1) understanding the strength and weakness of the hero, 2) learning all their cards and 3) learning the strengths and weaknesses of all the enemies and 4) building a good deck and strategy to clear all the levels. The player goes through hundreds of iterations to learn all the nuances to clear all the enemies. Once the boss is defeated, new heroes are unlocked. At surface level, the game tasks players to beat the enemies. However, the ultimate goal is to beat the heroes by leveraging their strengths and weaknesses to beat the enemies again and again. The side loop is collecting all the runes and cards.
The arch includes all the dialogue and stories sprinkled throughout the game. The most evocative arc appears when the player beats the last boss. There are many cut scenes and players just tap next to “read the story”