Course Summary:
Week 1
This week is all about developing a vocabulary for discussing games.
- ADMIN: Fill Out When2Meet, Register for 199 (or equivalent), register for this blog and email Christina with your username
- Assignment Formal Elements of Games
Week 2
This week we explore how games can teach us a skill or impart factual knowledge. In A Theory of Fun for Game Design, Raph Koster argues the nature of fun is learning and the joy of mastery. So why is school not very fun most of hte time? (or is it?)
- Assignment Sketchnote: MDAO
- Critical Play: Write up your game of FLUXX (ios and android, free) and identify the formal elements and how they work in this game. PAPER is MORE FUN.
- Optional Assignment Sketchnote Playtesting Alone
Start Project 1: Those who Play, Teach (due Monday Jan 24, 11:59pm)
Project Kickoff P1: Those Who Play, Teach
- Assignment Teaching Game Concept Statement
- Assignment test a rough Playable prototype
- Assignment Pitch your game (< 3 minutes) we will pitch when we meet next! you should have tested your concept by now.
Week 3
Work on Project 1: Those who Play, Teach (due Monday Jan 24, 11:59pm)
- “Lecture:” The Information Design of Board Games
- Assignment Sketchnote: Erin Hoffman // Wind, Not Sand: Mapping Dynamic Emotion Across a Product Landscape
- Critical Play: Pandemic. I have copies in my office and it is available as an IOS app (but bad tutorial.)
- Recommended Reading Visual Design of Board Games
Week 4
Project 1 DUE, Project 2 STARTS
Start Project 2: Interactive Fiction (due Monday Feb 14, 11:59pm)
- P1 WILL BE PLAYTESTED IN CLASS
- P2 The Future We Deserve
- Assignment Introducing Interactive Fiction (IF)
- Assignment Map and premise
- Assignment Sketchnote: Art of game design- Story
- Critical Play: Storytelling games
- Optional Reading: Henry Jenkins’ Game Design as Narrative Architecture
Week 5
Work on Project 2: Interactive Fiction (due Monday Feb 14, 11:59pm)
- Assignment Essay or Sketchnote: Rise of the Video Game Zinesters
- Critical Play: A Mechanic and a Story to Tell
- Optional Video What is Fun?
Week 6
- Assignment IN CLASS: Share What You Learned: Writing Excuses podcast (due by Sun 2/13 11:59pm)
- Assignment Tiny playable IF prototype (due by playtesting session, Thu 2/10 6pm)
- Optional Reading Playtesting
Week 7
Project 2 DUE, Project 3 Starts
Start Project 3: The Game of Unexpected Consequences (due Monday Feb 28, 11:59pm)
- P3: The Game of Unexpected Consequences
- Assignment Project 3 Concept Doc (due by Sun 2/20 11:59pm)
- Assignment/Slides: Mapping Systems
- Assignment Medium Essay: P2 Reflection (due by Sun 2/20 11:59pm)
- Assignment Sketchnote/Response for Playtesting with Strangers (due by Sun 2/20 11:59pm) (if you made a game, this is optional. If you are doing 1-2 credits, this is required.)
- Assignment Values At Play & P2 Peer Grading (due by Sun 2/20 11:59pm)
Grade(give feedback on) 3 classmates’ Interactive Fiction! Can be public or private.
Week 8
Wrap up Project 3: The Game of Unexpected Consequences (due Monday Feb 28, 11:59pm)
- Assignment Project 3 Check-in (due by your class session, Mon 2/21 or Wed 2/23)
- Assignment Working With System Dynamics (mindmap on the reading, writeup applying it to your game) (due by Sun 2/27 11:59pm)
- Assignment Sketchnote/Response for Rules & Tutorials (due by Sun 2/27 11:59pm) (For P4, Refine a game.)
- If you want to get your head around what I mean by a system game, read this https://medium.com/disruptive-design/tools-for-systems-thinkers-the-6-fundamental-concepts-of-systems-thinking-379cdac3dc6a
- Optional Reading Emergence & Progression
Week 9
Project 3 DUE by Mon Feb 28, 11:59pm, Final Project Starts
- READING Graphic Design for Game Designers (due by Sun 3/6 11:59pm)
- Assignment Medium Essay: P3 Reflection (due by Sun 3/6 11:59pm)
- Assignment Create your own rubric for P4 (due by Sun 3/6 11:59pm)
Week 10
Wrap up your Final Projects (P4)! (due by Sat 3/12, 11:59pm)
- Project 4: Refine a Game (due by Sat 3/12 11:59pm)
- Assignment Read: The Mechanic is the Message (due by Sun 3/13 11:59pm)
Assignment Final Reflection Essay. (due by Sun 3/13 11:59pm)