Learning Goals

These are the main skills and mental models that the course will encourage in you.

Widen your experience with games. You will encounter games in different forms, and will learn how to engage with them in terms of different origins, varieties, and meanings.

Understand games as systems. Games are systems, and almost all of the questions you will be asked will be about the systems embedded in games. When you study the book, the lectures, and the games, you should be thinking about the interconnected group of moving parts that makes up an emergent whole. You should become a better strategist. You will learn how to quickly assess your position in a game, and decide what to do next.

Learn about designers and design cultures. You will come to understand what drives people to design games, what their goals are, and how the world in which we live shapes those goals.

Learn about standards. You will begin to see repeated patterns of game design, "good tricks" and conventions that different designers have employed to foster their own unique creativity.

Develop your game criticism. You will get better at describing and discussing games with others. Your ability to make judgments about games will improve.

Learn how to work in game development. You will learn the different roles on a game development team and especially, how games are a collaborative art form (more on that below).

Becoming an innovator. You will begin to think about taking games beyond the current standards and paradigms.

See yourself as a game designer. You will begin to see how your own identity meshes with existing practices in game development. Are you an artist, a systems designer, a programmer, a musician? Are you a theorist?

Learn good practice. This has two components: Working hard and being a team player. Both are important here because games, like music, film, and stage, is a collaborative art form.

1. Work hard.

People in the game industry work hard. They devote a significant number of hours per week to their careers. Right before a game is released, the development team goes into "crunch time," a period of extra stress and work when everyone is trying to make the game absolutely perfect. During crunch time, people might work 80 or 90 hour weeks. That means, working from 8am to 9pm straight, with no breaks, every day, for several weeks. Do you have it in you to work that hard for your dreams? In this class, it is hard to get an A unless you devote many hours to the class. You have to study the readings, the lecture, and especially the games. You have to know them inside and out - to get an A. If you're satisfied with a B, then you won't have to work all that hard. But the game industry is not interested in people who only offer B-grade work. Think about this.

2. Be a good team member.

Everything about the university is better when students are good team members. But this class really depends on teamwork, because we can only learn these games by playing them together. You will be placed in a team of people you don't know. It is important to learn how to act in a team, with strangers, because games are made by teams of people. They all start out as strangers, and they have very different skills and interests (programming, art, sound, story, management - very different!). In this class, your grade will depend on your teamwork skills. This includes things like, coming to meetings! You have to come to class, EVERY class, and arrive on time. If your game group tries to schedule meetings to study, you have to make yourself available and show up on time. This is what the industry expects; they don't want to work with people who blow off meetings or come late. You have to buy two games that your group will use, and you have to bring those games and teach them when it is your turn. Nobody in the industry wants to work with people who don't do their part, or, because they don't organize their lives very well, just can't help when they are supposed to. Finally, you can't be a jerk. You can't cheat. You can't cut corners, lie, make false excuses, blame others, avoid responsibility. All of these bad interpersonal patterns might be fine in high school, but not here in college and certainly not in the game industry. The game industry, like all media industries, relies on personal reputation to make careers. If you get a reputation as a jerk, you will fail in your career. It's that simple. If you want to succeed, be a nice person. Always. That means: If you have an issue with someone, you go to them directly to talk about it. Answer emails, texts and calls promptly. Show up for meetings. Tell the truth. If the truth is going to hurt, be nice about it. Forgive people for their failings, and ask them to forgive you for yours. Be humble, don't take credit but give credit to others. Pass the ball. And so on and so on. The game industry is not interested in people who don't play well with others. Think about this.