A long, long time ago (my sophomore fall), I sent an email to Christina expressing my interest in game design and CS 247G. At the time, I knew I loved games. I had been an avid gamer for most of my childhood, and what better field to explore than one that paid me to spend time making and playing games!
It wasn’t until this quarter that I finally found the space in my schedule to take this course. Actual years of anticipation lead up to this moment: the big real. Would 247G live up to the hype?
On the first day of class, I walked into LATHROP 282, and I knew I was home. Instead of the minimalist slide deck I had come to expect from other courses, the slides for this lecture were decorated with images of Undertale; our first activity was to turn craft supplies into a game; Nina was sleeping in the corner.
I turned to Christina and said, “I never thought I’d see Undertale in a college lecture.” She responded, “Why not? It’s art.”
Like I said, I knew I was home.
We learned a ton of useful design, psychology, and creative techniques this quarter. The MDA framework helped us translate from the goals of our game to the mechanics we needed to implement. The different types of narrative architectures helped us understand how games tell stories and how we can tell stories through games. However, one piece of course content stood out to me above the rest. I was fascinated by the GDC lecture about onboarding in Plants vs. Zombies. Everything George Fan said in that talk was both surprising and completely obvious. How do you get players to understand what your currency is used for? Well, plants need sun, so sun tokens are probably used to grow plants. Coins are used to buy stuff, right? So, you can probably buy stuff with coins.
In the context of tutorials and onboarding, it turns out that all you really need to do is give the player what they’d expect, and they’ll understand. Teach them one thing at a time, and have those teaching build on each other. Keep things simple and intuitive, and don’t overwhelm them with too many new things at a time. In our team’s final project, we have an onboarding sequence that teaches the player the movement mechanics. First, a fallen branch forces them to use the jump button to progress. Immediately after the branch, they find rocks they can’t clear without double jumping. We integrated the tutorial into the environment, using physical space to teach the player what they can do. While not as masterfully crafted as the PVZ tutorial, I think there are elements of good design in our onboarding that borrow from Fan’s playbook.
Unlike most computer science courses, it’s hard to find a wrong answer in 247G. This class is challenging not because of complexity, but because it pushes you to be generative; you must create something new from what already exists. Whether that’s remixing Werewolf into a cyberpunk thriller or drawing a funky sketchnote on one of the weekly readings, pretty much everything we do in 247G is intentional and bold originality grounded in research and observation.
I grew a lot as a critical thinker this quarter. Analyzing and writing about games, both in 247G and Read Write Play (shoutout RWP Spring 2025), has strengthened my ability to connect my observations to my knowledge about people and the world. I know that the critical thinking skills we developed through our critical plays are highly transferable, and I will continue to draw upon that experience to make intentional observations and form well-researched opinions throughout my education and career. It turns out you can learn a lot about the world by studying games.
But, beyond all that, this quarter reminded me how much I love games. Christina, the CAs, and my classmates brought passion and love into our classroom. I felt like I belonged here in 247G, in a room of creative, fun, and genuine people. I wanted to stay late at game night! I wanted to draw better sketchnotes! I wanted to keep playing games.
Thank you to all my teammates this quarter, Noé, Victor, Richard, Joaquin, Em, Aimen, and Sebastian. Thank you to Amy. Thank you to all the CAs. Thank you to Christina. And, of course, thank you to Nina.
It lived up to the hype.
Nina says you’re welcome!