Before taking this class, I had little experience in designing good games, especially games with learning objectives or specific messages/critiques. I liked games and had played mainly video games until college. I liked board games but did not really have opportunities to play a wide variety often. This changed in college, where I spent a lot less time on video games and more time with my friends on board games. One of my friends who really got me into some interesting board games was Seamus, who also convinced me to take this class. I don’t think I would have taken it had it not been for him, as I did not have a lot of confidence in my game-design abilities. I’m really glad I ended up taking this class though, since it ended up being one of my favorite classes I’ve taken at Stanford.
At first, I thought playing games in class was a little silly, but I very quickly realized the immense value of doing this. Once I had learned some of the game design principles and got practice looking at games from a design perspective, I was able to come away with a lot of interesting information from playing games, even if we did not play all the way through. This also has gotten me thinking about game design while playing games outside of class, too. One example of this has been playing the new Lord of the Rings game, Return to Moria. Seamus and I spent a lot of time commenting on the design of the game and the UX.
I really liked the range of games that I got introduced to in the context of this class. There were a lot of very fun and interesting games which I had not heard of before which I would definitely love to check out outside of class. It would be very awesome to have some sort of document with the list of games brought in class as well as other recommended games with labels for genre, mechanics, etc.
The sketchnotes were interesting ways to engage with readings, but I wasn’t a huge fan in general. However I am not sure I could propose a better alternative: normal note-taking plus images is usually how I take notes on things. Some of the readings I came away with more than others. To me I think the most informative reading was the MDAO one. I kept coming back to that one throughout the quarter. I’m sure I will reference others in the future as well, as well as videos we watched for the class. There are a lot of very interesting points throughout the readings to get designers thinking about their games. I also liked the reading with the different kinds of fun. Keeping concepts like these in mind at the beginning of the design process is important so you can have goals to work toward instead of wandering around the design process aimlessly. Loops and arcs are also interesting perspectives to be looking at a game from.
I learned a lot about game design process, especially working with an experienced designer for three out of the four projects. I discovered I definitely work better with others. The P2 IF was not my strongest work, as I had little experience in writing fiction and creating digital games. I learned a lot about Twine and making non-linear/branching stories and got some great feedback from a couple of friends. The importance and timing of playtesting was a big takeaway for me from this class. I would not have realized that playtesting a rough version of the game would be as valuable as it is.
Throughout the board game projects, I learned a lot about making fun games with a learning objective. Each of our games ended up being pretty fun and interesting while also being informative, whether it was Sunnyvale, CA and demonstrating how NIMBY-ism works, or offering a humorous critique of a social phenomenon such as helicopter parenting in our game Helicopter Parent, or a demonstration of how pork barrel politics works in our abandoned game Addendum. Each was fun to play and had great humorous elements while leaving players with a better idea of how the system works by putting them in the shoes of the primary participants. These are all good things to have when making serious games in my opinion.
I think this class has definitely done a lot to cultivate my “developer-mind” while playing games. This definitely will be useful to me when developing and playing games as I will have a much clearer conception of mechanics and aesthetics of games (back to MDAO again… useful framework for me).
I might see if I can prompt my siblings to make a simple game with me over the break. This would be a fun exercise both getting them to think about games but also practice for me in designing a different kind of game as well as communicating ideas from the course. I also look forward to working on more games in the future, whether board games or digital games. I wish I had this knowledge years ago so that I could be playing board games with this mindset instead of getting totally consumed by the gameplay itself always, although this could arguably be more fun. Learning the mechanics can kind of take away some of the magic of a game, in a similar way studying music has affected the way I experience music. That is not to say that I regret this class at all. I think being a magician is awesome since you can show other people the magic.
