in the intro class we could use Alice (it works on mac’s and pc’s) or Scratch (also works on both machines) to sort of act out their definitions of what’s a game - i think at each level there should be some production angle (kind of one of hte specialties at the park school) .
in [...]
Archive > December 2007
software we could use in class
game portal idea and pc news
the freshmen in the what’s a game class turned in their videogames and they weren’t too bad. Some did a better job at hte game angle and others did a better job at the serious game angle (part of the assignment - teach something/advertise something/promote an idea). But all playable, all had sound. One even [...]
Something else to plan an activity around ith the game major
I wrote about game jams the other day - game making weekends
Another thing the students could get involved in is game-related charity - here’s a news story that lists several charities with which game companies are involved (giving back to consumers as it were)
Working with other department
So my dean wants us to start with a full class of 25-30 kids - sounds good for me. But the other depts probably can’t handle that many more students. Next year we won’t have that many - so we’ll give them a year to ramp up.
Working with other people is tough. It’s tough enough [...]
Game Jams
I saw this post on a blog about teaching game design - the author describes some games made at a game jam - http://teachingdesign.blogspot.com/2007/12/pittsburgh-game-jam-games-available-for.html
That would be a fun event to schedule once we get people up to the junior and senior year of classwork. the one the blogger mentions was in Pittsburgh in November. They [...]
Interesting gamasutra article
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=16652
5 Trends for game development in the next couple of years
- i like the mainstreaming of handhelds - lots of interesting games behing put together for hte little handhelds - and who wouldn’t want to come upwith the came that makes the blow function useful on the DS - ha ha
- the trend about [...]
students
if we get to choose students for the new program - i want kids that are willing to play around, experiment, who are tolerant of situations where everything isn’t known up front. The students in one of my classes are making games and they aren’t comfortable goofing around with the software or moving from a [...]
a blog post with useful info
http://www.philsteinmeyer.com/132/casual-game-post-mortemdesign-doc-congo-cube/
has links to a playable demo, a design doc (nicely done iwth graphics) and a postmortem - the game is Congo Cube by John Romero
we can use them in the game design class
activity for begining of game design class
from the game design workshop book p. 208-109 (which i like)
use the play matrix - x axis goes from skill (left) to chance (right), y axis goes from (physical dexterity (bottom) to mental calculation (top)
have them put various games on the chart like WOW, Twister, Monopoly, Clue, pin the tail on the donkey, tag, some [...]
Going thru old notes
and want to make sure i don’t lose any of our original thinking
there were a lot of classes we think people should take - they could go on to the list of suggested electives I think
industrial design (somebody has to make the controllers)
technical writing - for bug reports, software documentation
art - drawing, painting, 2d and [...]
