Developing a New Major

gonna use the jeannie novak book - game development essentials

• ch1 is history stuff - need a little something for the new students, I found some good extra resources to work in this year but maybe more of the basic info belongs in the intro class and in the analysis class we play more of the old games but this year gotta put some of the info into the analysis class
• ch2 is the player - do we want to cover that - maybe after the game elements as they start their own games - found a good chapter in the azeroth book about girls who play WOW that will be a good complement to the pink book
• ch3 is game elements - it’s 30 or 40 pages with a quickie overview of topics like platform (can have them compare the same game on different platforms, talk about how a game idea would play out on different platforms), time interval, player mode, genres, and market - want to focus on this chapter - basic decisions that game makers have to go thru, things we can easily identify in the games we play, intro to genres (what do I want them to know about genres - play games labeled as certain genres and try to come up with our own definitions using characteristics of those games, are there new genres, are there hybrid genres) - bring in stuff from ch12 (learning an unfamiliar genre) from teh challenges for game designers book
• ch4 is storytelling - bring in stuff from ch13 (designing a game to tell a story) from the challenges book
• ch5 is characters - bring in ch5 (chance) and ch6 (strategic skill) and ch8 (finding the balance) from callenges book
• ch6 is gameplay - want to focus on this chapter - gameplay in the boardgames we’re playing in class, in teh videogames they’re playing outside class - it’s a quickie skim over a lot of topics - the way to sell it maybe is this is the intro, gives them a little info to use when looking at existing games, gives them a little base of info to start their exploration and next year when making hteir first videogame they’ll learn more here htey get to make a boardgame and do some of the gameplya choices
• ch7 is levels - we’re going to make levels with some of the games’ built-in tools - could bring in ideas about puzzles from the challenges for game designers book (it’s ch3) - what makes puzzles fun, puzzle types
• ch8 is interface - bringin stuff from ch16 (creating a user interface) from challenges book
• ch9 is audio -not so important for the creation angle but good for the analysis angle
• ch10 is team stuff - intro to being a good team member, team member roles
• ch11 is management - development phases, documentation - gotta talk about this before they’re making their games and game content
• ch12 is marketing and the rise of player developed content - could look at ads, at ads for specific audiences (bring in some of ch2), gotta do something other than make ads since we did that already  - could look at the post sales marketing : the forums, newsletters, websites, updates, expansion packs that companies create around their games for the consumer/player; for hte player developed content - this is where the making game level/content using the built in tools comes in - maybe we have to do it earlier? maybe ethat’s the final exam project because it will take them the semester to learn the game and do their creation. So they present the game during the final exam time maybe? gotta find a way to get the content shared with others - article about the market for eurogames in US: http://spielboy.com/printrun.php , http://www.discovergames.com/bschwartz.htm

??? what order do we do the topics, when do I make the projects due - don’t want everything done at the end, some projects need time to set up

??? could we do 5 weeks (about 1/3 of the semester) on book stuff - go over ch3,6,7 and some part of 5 and 8 - have a test, then come back and apply the ideas to their creations and discuss the other chapters, talk about the history?

potential projects

the chapters from the challenge book have specific challenges that we could do as homework - be good to try for 10 of them to equal 100 points, could just do in class without any points sometimes

create level in videogame using built in content creation tools - like Little Big PLanet, Boom Blox, Ratchett & CLank, N+ - need more tools, hopefully something on each platform so we can spread the groups out - group, project, short paper

create board/card game based on the Persepolis book - create game, write rules, test with other people not in our class, have to have a project plan - group project, need game play and characters and story, due week 11 - some resources:

http://www.wunderland.com/WTS/Andy/Games/DesignPrinciples.html

http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/DesignConsiderations.shtml

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Your-Own-Board-Game

http://www.essortment.com/hobbies/makeboardgame_smbs.htm

http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/gameboard.htm

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Trading-Card-Game

http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/GroovyPrototypes.shtml

create game using the icehouse pyramids - any topic - create game, write rules, test with other people in class, put on the icehouse list and seek comments (we put them all on a page on our site and advertise that site on the icehouse list maybe - have to format our entries like theirs - or can we put all of our games on their site?) - group or individual? put descriptions of the games on the wiki to give students experience using wiki software - due before midterm - maybe after we go over ch 3 and 6 (not much story or character development needed, more focus on gameplay)

create a blog analysing games played - different topic each week but same game? Make a page to list all the blogs on and promote it and encourage people to comment, board game teams - have to write up analysis of the games we play in class - whatever the topic is that week, analyze the board game for - could do for 5 weeks - points for each individual report and then points for a summary/conclusion, due end of week 7; videogame teams - like we assign board games - do for 5 weeks (to get 100 points total) - mix of genres and platforms - like the boardgames - weekly game analysis and then a final write up - maybe this is what we put in the blog (video and board), so it’s a group blog instead of individual (but do we need some individual assignment - due end of week 13

as a class create a list of influential games with annotations about why, sales, news, criticisms - each group prepares entry on one game from each decade maybe or we use the best of lists for each year for last 20 years or something, put in wiki so they learn how to use the wiki software - brings in the history, we can talk about the development of genres, changing audience, role of tech development - maybe for end of week 4

I’d like a project or two where they’re making stuff about games - maybe the blog will do it for me, maybe the promotion of their games, ohhh - maybe we could make podcasts about the influential games and post those - that might be more fun than a paper - gotta get someone to show them how to do video editing, how to put in stills, how to get game play footage

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Board game, Boom Blox, Game development, Video game