Before this class, I thought of game design as something out of reach. Surely the minds behind all our favorite games spend years in a boardroom covered in post-its, mapping out every detail before releasing a perfect game. I didn’t know that design elements can act as mechanics in gameplay, influencing the narrative and “funness” of a game, and I didn’t know that designing something great requires frequent play-testing and high levels of iteration. The class concepts that stuck with me the most were environment scoping. I really liked the idea that restricting movement can add to narrative. It inspired my team to do an expandable board for P2, and I think it turned out really well. When we moved on to create rooms, I had so much fun thinking of mini-games and bringing them to life. For each room, I got to build a mini-world and ask, “what values would this shopkeeper want to impress on this aspiring shop owner?”.
Most of my challenges in this course came from having entirely too much on my plate this quarter. I frequently turned sketch notes and critical plays in during the grace period instead of finishing them after the deadline. That meant I would often show up to section less prepared than I would have liked to be. Overall, I grew so much in this course. My frontend coding skills and knowledge jumped by leaps and bounds as generative AI showed me things I didn’t know were possible. While chatGPT is good for some rough ideas and structure, it isn’t good enough to take a design vision and truly bring it to life. Fixing borked chatGPT code taught me more than coding from scratch could have in 5 weeks. I also deepened my love for games in this course. I have roughly doubled my lifetime count of games played since joining this course, and it has been amazing.
Moving forward, I will prioritize play. This class helped me grow socially in ways that I didn’t expect, and this might be my favorite class I have ever taken at Stanford. The balance of hard work and fun is truly impeccable. Thank you for a great last quarter on campus <3
