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 that I enjoy is Catan. It has both a loop and arc architecture. The loop architecture is a loop around all of the players’ turns. There are two arc structures, one being a single player’s turn and the other being each individual player’s moves in the scope of the whole game. The single player’s turn arc is broken into the dice roll, trading, and building. The single player’s game arc is broken into the starting, the building, and the win at the end.