Games have always been a big part of my life — I got my first game console (the DSi) when I was 6, and vividly remember spending hours playing every type of game all throughout my childhood. When I was smaller, I played a much wider variety of games than I do today — I played everything, from Super Mario Galaxy and Pokemon to Guitar Hero and Brain Age, yet I never really considered the differences between each type of game — they were all fun! As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten more picky in the types of games I enjoy, but I still never really thought about game design critically — I just knew which games I found fun and which games I didn’t.
This class encouraged me to think more about how subtle decisions in game design can ultimately have a massive effect on the feel of the final product, and I think it did a fantastic job of covering such a wide gamut of topics and techniques in such a short time. Most importantly, though, were the first thing we learned — that play is fundamental to living a satisfying life. Between all of the noise and stressors of life, this class has reminded me that it’s not the end of the world (and probably better in the long run) to take a night off from studying to play some poker with friends or destress with Stardew Valley (and it gave me an excuse to play Overwatch under the guise of it being for schoolwork). Between all the sketchnotes, critical plays, and projects, I also had a blast just going back through and reflecting on the games I played as a kid, this time equipped with a magnifying lens and a fine-toothed comb learning about the little things I never noticed before. The assignments made me explicitly realize the things that I implicitly understood before, and they proved incredibly helpful when designing my own games in both projects.
That being said, my time in this class wasn’t all fun and games (well, it was all games). Working with a group of mostly strangers was challenging, and the second project was especially difficult as I wasn’t familiar with Unity at all. I also was challenged by this class’ emphasis on drawing/visual notetaking with sketch notes and mind maps, since I have the drawing proficiency of a first grader. Despite this challenge, I have found visual taking really helpful in aiding with retention, and I began using them in my biology class, which has been super helpful in forcing me to understand information rather than regurgitating it. In the future, I plan on continuing to use visual and other alternative forms of notetaking to diversify my forms of learning and avoid getting bored/burnt out.
Overall, I had a fantastic time in this class learning more about the importance and power of games, tools and principles behind game design, and simply learning more about myself as a person and how I learn best. Many thanks to the teaching team, and hope you all have a restful summer! You deserve it 😀
