Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Examines the discipline of game design. Games are studied across three analytical frameworks: games as rules (formal system), games as play (experiential system), games as culture (social system). Includes analytical and practical exercises in game design.

COURSE DETAILS:

Game Design is a creative endeavor requiring practical experience through design, critique, and iteration. In the lecture part of this class, we will read and discuss some of the work that analyzes players, games and the design process to establish common ground for practical work in the course labs. We will also cover some of the more universal game mechanisms, such as randomness, economic systems, player motivation and psychology, and a few specific topics in more detail. In the labs, we will play, critique, improve and design games as well as report on the course's longer game design projects.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

The course should help you gain practical experience with and a critical understanding of:

• The existing attempts to analyze the psychology of players and how it affects game design and consumption
• The process of game design and its components such as prototyping and play testing
• Some of the dimensions along which to think about game design and critique existing designs, such as art style, narrative and game balance
• A subset of the mechanisms available to accomplish game design goals, such as reward systems and economic systems 

Intended learning outcomes

The course is intended to support you to gain both practical experience with and a critical understanding of the foundations of game design in specific contexts. Specifically, by fulfilling the requirements of the course you will be prepared to accomplish key tasks in 4 main game design areas:

1. Game Design Basics: 
1. Explain and critically reflect on games, and the characteristics and features of different types of games including their components, mechanics & rules, dynamics, and aesthetics/UX/fun, the “Magic Circle”, and what makes for a compelling game 
2. Analyze and argue what makes for a compelling game (or not) and why people like to play games
2. Game Design Frameworks & Psychology
1. Compare and contrast different frameworks and underlying assumptions, and determine how and when to use which frameworks
2. Explain different player types and psychologies, how they affect their gameplay, assumptions, and preferences, and use this knowledge to improve game designs
3. Game Design Process: 
1. Explain and effectively utilize game design best practices/processes/frameworks/mechanics, and explain how you did this when designing several games in teams. This includes typical game design phases such as ideation, prototyping and play testing as the base for an iterative game design cycle 
2. Analyze, discuss, and critique games using appropriate terminology, and provide well-structured, constructive, and useful feedback (e.g., after playtesting or game pitches). 
3. Discuss the difference between game critiques vs. playtesting, and demonstrate why, when, and how to use either of them effectively to improve your game and design process
4. Effectively demonstrate and reflect on how to effectively communicate your game across different stages (from early prototype to final game), to different audiences (both internal and external), and using different presentation formats (incl. written instructions/rule sheets, pitches, game design documents (GDDs), and game videos)
4. Game Design Teams: 
1. Reflect on and apply suitable processes and team-based, collaborative practices used in game design including ideation, prototyping, iterative revisions, and playtesting as the base for an iterative design cycle to a game design project.
1. Specific processes covered in this class may include structured team brainstorming (affinity diagramming), moodboards, inspiration analysis, Razor & Slogan, Play Matrix, playtesting scripts, structured game critique/analysis, and Agile project management)
2. Explain what makes a good game designer, and why and how they often work in teams
3. Reflect on your own and others’ assumptions, lenses, beliefs, what people really care about, and preferences about games/playing, and how do they affect game design and teamwork 
4. Explain and utilize a toolbox of how to  foster a collaborative, constructive, and supportive team culture and process, including patterns of thinking and behaviour that support effective teams, as well as specific  tools, tips, processes and frameworks (incl. Agile) that might be useful
5. Find ways to effectively address challenges that can occur in team-based environments while being respectful and constructive. (This could include collaboratively resolve challenges that commonly occur in team-based projects, such as balancing between leading/following, communication challenges, conflicts that arise, ensuring all team members contribute meaningfully, engaging all team members, ensuring all care for the project and each other, getting people on the same page, and figuring out a shared vision/purpose that all can care about). 

Grading

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

Based on prior student feedback and recommendations, and there's a chance we might need to switch to online teaching: you won't need to purchase physical prototyping materials for designing your own games. Instead we will use an online board game simulator, the "Tabletop Simulator" https://www.tabletopsimulator.com/about. Course assignments will be taught and demonstrated with this software, and other software will not be supported by the course. You can also use this software for rapid prototyping and designing your games in your teams, and it also works really well for online and distributed playtesting (and of course gaming just for fun), and sharing your final games online. Thus we strongly recommend that you purchase, download, and install your own copy of it before class starts, see link above of directly from Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/286160/Tabletop_Simulator/. it runs on both Windows and MacOS and currently costs CDN$ 21.99. The software has a lot of excellent online resources and tutorials available at https://www.tabletopsimulator.com/about. Note that to minimize your extra costs for this class, we are removing the need to purchase physical prototyping and game design materials, and I chose a textbook where our library provides free online access.

To see and try out prior games from my IAT 312 course you can enter “IAT312” into the search field on the Tabletop Simulator site on Steam or through this direct link.

REQUIRED READING:

RECOMMENDED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: