IAT 842: Theory and Design of Games

Week 1

Wednesday 1/9
Look at the Syllabus
Play Session of Settlers of Catan

Friday 1/11
What is a Game?

Sign up for game research presentations

Materials:
• Roger Caillois. “The Definition of Games: The classification of Games”
• Bernard Suits. “Construction of a Definition”
• Greg Cosstikyan. “I have no words and I must Design”
• Staffan Bjork and Jussi Holopainen. “Games and Design Patterns”

Due for next week on blog: Critique of Settler’s of Catan

Week 2

Friday 1/18
Game Design Models & Economic Systems

Play Session of Oasis, Dancing with the Stars

Materials:
• Doug Church. “Formal Abstract Design Tools”
• William Poundstone. “Game Theory”
• Marc LeBlanc. “Tools for Creating Dramatic Game Dynamics”
• Richard Rouse III. “Game Analysis: Centipede”
• Edward Castronova. “Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier”
• Richard Bartle. “Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players who Suit MUDs”

Due for next week on blog: Critique of Oasis, looking at Majestic, and Matrix online from review sources

Week 3

Friday 1/25
Games and Narrative, Character

Play Assassins Creed

Materials:
• Mateas and Stern. “Interaction and Narrative”
• Bateson. “A Theory of Play and Fantasy”
• Gary Alan Fine. “Frames and Games”
• Henry Jenkins. “Game Design as Narrative Architecture”
• Optional: Some Chapters from Emotioneering book (distributed in week 2)

Due for next week on blog: Critique of Assassins Creed

Week 4

Friday 2/1
Game Spaces

Play Prince of Persia, Theif III

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/slides/smith/index.htm

http://www.gamespot.com/video/528587/6099282/gslive-at-e3-2004-thief-deadly-shadows-interview

http://kotaku.com/gaming/ion-storm/why-thief-3-sucked-interview-with-randy-smith-181008.php

Due for next week on blog: Critique of Prince of Persia I, Thief III

Week 5

Friday 2/8
Process of Design, Case Studies

Materials:
From Design Research: Methods and Perspectives by Brenda Laurel
Brenda Laurel “Demo: Design Improvisation”
Christopher Ireland. “Qualitative Methods: From Boring to Brilliant”
Tim Plowman. “Ethnography and Critical Design Practice”
Stacey Purpura. “Overview of Quantitative Methods in Design Research”
Nathan Shedroff. “Research Methods for Designing Effective Experiences”
Eric Zimmerman. “Play as Research”
Rob Tow. “Strategy, Tactics and Heuristics for Research”

Week 6

Friday 2/15
Research: Narrative

Presentations
(Michael &Xin)

Research Papers:
• Magy Seif El-Nasr. Interaction, Narrative, and Drama Creating an Adaptive Interactive Narrative using Performance Arts Theories. Interaction Studies, Vol 8, No. 2, 2007.
• Mateas, M. and A. Stern (2002). Architecture, Authorial Idioms and early Observations of the Interactive Drama Facade. CMU-CS-02-198. Pittsburgh, PA, Carnegie Mellon University.
• Szilas, N.: IDTension: A Narrative Engine for Interactive Drama. Proceedings of the Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment (TIDSE) Conference (2003) 187-203
• Cavazza, Aylett, Dautenhahn, et. Al. Interactive Storytelling in Virtual Environments: Building the Holodeck, Proceedings of VSMM, 2000 [http://www-scm.tees.ac.uk/users/f.charles/publications/
conferences/2000/vsmm2000.pdf]

Week 7

(Magy is out of town, need to reschedule)

Friday 2/22
No Class

Decide on Research Paper direction, research topic

Week 8
(Magy out of town, need to reschedule)

Friday 2/29
No Class

Decide on Research Paper direction, research topic

Week 9

Friday 3/7
Research: Characters

Presentations
(Veronica & Xin)

Research Papers:
• Tomlinson, B. (2005). From linear to interactive animation: how autonomous characters change the process and product of animating, Computers in Entertainment (CIE), Vol. 3, No. 1.
• Kopp, W. a. (2001). Lifelike gesture synthesis and timing for conversational agents. Gesture Workshop 2001, London, UK, Springer.
• Bates, J., Loyall, B., and Reilly, S. (1992). An Architecture for Action, Emotion, and Social Integrating Reactivity, Goals and Emotion in a Broad Agent. Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University.
• Chi, D., Costa, M., Zhao, L., Badler, N. (2000). The EMOTE model for effort and shape, Proceedings of the 27th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.173-182.
• Perlin, K., Goldberg, A. Improv: A system for scripting interactive actors in virtual worlds. Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 96 (August 1996), 205--216.
• Blumberg, B. Anticipatory AI and Compelling Characters. Gamasutra, 2006.

Week 10

Friday 3/14
New Forms of Games: Pervasive Games, Narrative based games

Presentations
(Michael & David)

 Research Papers:
• Liz Goodman. Fiasco: Location-based, physical gameplay with a digital interface a workshop position paper at Pervasive 2004 [http://www.confectious.net/writing/Fiasco_Pervasive.pdf]
• Verhaegh, Soute, Kessels, Markopoulos. On the Design of Camelot, an outdoor game for children. Conference on Interaction Design and Children, 2006.
• Pac Manhattan [http://pacmanhattan.com/ about.php]
• Magerkurth, Stenzel, Streitz, Neuhold. A Multimodal Interaction Framework for Pervasive Game Applications
• Façade by Mateas and Stern
• Flow & Cloud
• Tracy Fullerton et al. Journey of Discovery: The Night Journey Project as Video/Game Art. Sandbox 2007
• Terminal Time. http://www.terminaltime.com/

Week 11

Good Friday

No class

Week 12

Friday 3/28
Research: Using Games in Training, Education, Health

Presentations
(David, Nis, & Beth)

Research Papers:
• James Gee. What Video Games have to teach us about learning and literacy. Computers in Entertainment, 2003.
• Swartout, W. et al. Toward the Holodeck: Integrating Graphics, Sound, Character, and Story. International Conference on Autonomous Agents, 2001. [http://www.isi.edu/~rickel/mre-agents-2001-distribution.pdf]
• Aylett, Vala, Sequeira, Paiva. FearNot!–An Emergent Narrative Approach to Virtual Dramas for Anti-bullying Education. [http://www.
springerlink.com/index/g54771761631r095.pdf]

Week 13

Friday 4/4
Research Methods and Techniques: Funology and Evaluation

Presentations
(Veronica, Beth and Nis)

Due: Prepare for Game Proposal, due Week 15