[Conceptualization and Formalization] Game Design and Development College Course

[Ian Mclean]

I am working with my local college to develop a Game Design and Development course. I know this may seem like the wrong place to discuss it, but we are pretty certain that it would best benefit our students if the course itself were a game of sorts. I've looked at it and I believe that the Roleplaying Genre of games seems to be a good place to start in designing the course/game.


I've started modeling it based on games such as Life, Monopoly, and the RatRace. The student takes a role in the class representative of their interests. Each role has associated with it a track of projects and related study modules which they may pursue to pass the class. As the Student attends class they are paid per hour, per project, and rewarded with bonuses for work of superior quality (peer review), under budget, under time, and extra effort above and beyond course requirements. The student may use the munny they acquire from their work to purchase materials, access to more challenging projects, utilize student-to-student contracts, and other such things related to their work/play (any suggestions for purchasable would be appreciated)

I've used a creative agenda as a guideline for designing the core gameplay, but this model is incomplete so far.

The Creative Agenda is as follows:
Make Games through collaborative effort.
Explore and Experience Game Design and Development
Walk through the process of iterative design, prototyping, and playtesting
Excercise leadership and social interaction
Engage in critical dialogue and communication using multi modal media.
Evaluate games
Strategize, plot and execute projects
Get people jobs: Portfolio development, networking (references), resumes, interviews

A brief Outline of the concepts I am working with are available here.


I am interested in getting feedback of any kind as this is the conceptualization stage in which I am still brain storming. Constructive criticism would be appreciated.

[JoyWriter]

Interesting, one preliminary caution though: Don't create artificial scarcity!
Presumably the purpose of your reward structure is particularly to motivate those who do not have good self-motivation, as for many people designing games may be it's own benefit. I know in my own project work the marking has been focused on forcing us to remember efficiency and speed, sometimes to the detriment of other forms of quality. You want the motivational system to push towards the ideal state, balanced nicely between all of the criteria you give, rather than trying to over-compensate in any direction.

The money? Well isn't that their mark!

Classes in your thing seem fairly equivalent to schemes of study, and have the same issues: People can try out different classes, actual professional roles are more fixed. And if this differentiation doesn't multi-class well, then people could find that your system does not represent their character concept. In other words their set of interests falls through the cracks or gets squished into a box that doesn't suit them.

Basically you've created a game in the economic rather than recreational sense, and there is nothing wrong with that, but work and play are rather different, the primary advantage of a game being the potential for experimentation without consequence. People can create a fluid identity within games, as well as trying out different kinds of problem and doing all those risky things that things that go with diminished responsibility. For that reason you could perhaps create a "best of" system, so that you take your four highest marks rather than a sum or average. This will allow insulation of mistakes from final scores, as well as encouraging people to go for the best. But these are not the only things that gives games value of course, and the feeling of advancement is a powerful driver of satisfaction in many rpg systems. Insuring that students can see that they are improving, perhaps by coming back round to the same things from a more experienced perspective later on, will encourage them no end, and feedback loops of that kind will be very important in iterative design anyway.

Also if you want to tie rewards to interaction, you better have a way to measure that! I once got very little credit on a project because I talked and helped rather than writing things down. You can force people to record their interactions, but that puts a lot of power into the hands of the minute taker, is it possible to measure their actual talking? Perhaps it is better rather than measuring directly, to institute a team-speak skype via website type setup , and then encourage those activities that are most effectively done in a cross-disciplinary way. There are also more subtle ways, like the radiation tracer effect: Drop a hint you know would be useful to someone else, then see if it gets to them, and how fast. Just like measuring blood flow through the brain, these tracers could be used to find collaboration and idea cross-pollination. The tricky part is insuring that it is the tracer and not just their idea, which will mean lots of hints to lots of different people, and probably a reputation for giving out obscure advice!

Technically I don't think you have used the word creative agenda in the way it is commonly used here, where it is focused on "Prove something", "Say something" and "Experience something", or other variations on those three themes. But that's probably just a jargon overlap!

A final thought, many courses are already games, because you can "game" the marking system by working out what things are likely to be in the exam, or squeezing into the mark-scheme in weird ways, as well as defeating relative mark-schemes by all getting nothing right and coming joint first etc etc. I'd be cautious before encouraging that kind of behaviour in my students, unless I thought my assessment system was storm-proof!

Just some thoughts, hope they were constructive.

[oriondarkwood]

I am working with my local college to develop a Game Design and Development course. I know this may seem like the wrong place to discuss it, but we are pretty certain that it would best benefit our students if the course itself were a game of sorts. I've looked at it and I believe that the Roleplaying Genre of games seems to be a good place to start in designing the course/game.


I've started modeling it based on games such as Life, Monopoly, and the RatRace. The student takes a role in the class representative of their interests. Each role has associated with it a track of projects and related study modules which they may pursue to pass the class. As the Student attends class they are paid per hour, per project, and rewarded with bonuses for work of superior quality (peer review), under budget, under time, and extra effort above and beyond course requirements. The student may use the munny they acquire from their work to purchase materials, access to more challenging projects, utilize student-to-student contracts, and other such things related to their work/play (any suggestions for purchasable would be appreciated)

I've used a creative agenda as a guideline for designing the core gameplay, but this model is incomplete so far.

The Creative Agenda is as follows:
Make Games through collaborative effort.
Explore and Experience Game Design and Development
Walk through the process of iterative design, prototyping, and playtesting
Excercise leadership and social interaction
Engage in critical dialogue and communication using multi modal media.
Evaluate games
Strategize, plot and execute projects
Get people jobs: Portfolio development, networking (references), resumes, interviews

A brief Outline of the concepts I am working with are available here.


I am interested in getting feedback of any kind as this is the conceptualization stage in which I am still brain storming. Constructive criticism would be appreciated.

I think one thing that would help us help you is knowing at what point of the course are you teaching this and what subject are taught before and after. IMHO the classes I would expect to see if such a course would be:

English and Grammar  (hard to sell a game with grammar issues or one that is hard to read)
Statistics and Probablity
Gaming History and Trends
Gaming Analyst and Design
Creative Thinking
Psychology and Socialogy
Marketing

[Ian Mclean]

Much thanks to JoyWriter for your analysis and brainstorming. I very much liked your discourse about measuring interaction and rewarding it properly. That issue is one which is of high importance in the eyes of the students and instructors I've surveyed. I like the "radiation tracer" method you poise because it works well with a "lego set" lesson construction method I've been devising.

Like a lego set, you give the students a bunch of pieces and supply them with a common bucket, a few instruction sets for constructing prefab patterns, and tell them to work together to build something. The point of which is to get them doing cross talk and to distribute the information/process costs throughout the class. If you dropped "tracers" like you suggest into the scenario, you should be able to trace interaction patterns across the class and assure that collaboration and communication occurred in the class, in theory at least.

I think one thing that would help us help you is knowing at what point of the course are you teaching this and what subject are taught before and after.

This is an introductory-level junior college class similar in mien to "Introduction to Engineering", "Introduction to Business", or "Introduction to Multimedia". I am expecting high school competency in English both written and verbal, mathematics (Algebra and Intro Trig), and college level reading skills. I apologize for the ambiguity but the name of the course is "Introduction to Game Design and Development." We will be using "Game Design Workshop" by Tracy Fullerton as the textbook, but I plan on the course materials to consist of various multimedia including film, music, video games, physical games, and even some improve Theatre a la L.A.R.P.

The point of the class is to provide a solid foundation for individuals interested in professional game development. We intend it to address, in the majority:
Gaming History and Trends
Gaming Analyst and Design
Creative Thinking

The other areas we expect to cover, in depth, in a number of other classes we are developing. Though their importance will be emphasized and addressed during the course of the class.
English and Grammar (hard to build a game without good communication skills)
Statistics and Probability
Psychology and Sociology
Marketing

A list of the courses in development is available here.
If you are interested in contributing to any of the documents I present here, please send me a PM and I'll add you to our list of collaborators.

Our current curriculum and game design comes from a summary of what I consider to be good education methodology

[dindenver]

Ian,
  Something that should be an element of your design is two controls:
1) A control that forces each student to do the tedious work that no one likes to do (eg playtesting ad nauseum)
2) A control that forces the student to actually manage a large-ish project.
  If you want to prepare your students for professional game design, these are two areas where actual experience might help them decide if they want this as a career choice and if it is worth it to them. I know for video game design, Testing is the usual entry level and it is quite tedious and boring. And I know for indie games and non-video games, play testing is the core quality indicator. But, I also know that your students will benefit from understanding the business and/or social realities of managing a larger project that they could not just do themselves out in the big, bad world.
  Finally, I would be careful of making a game of it, as this might encourage the students to "game" the system and they might leave the experience not learning anything meaningful. It has been my experience that there is a large sector of the gaming subculture that think they understand how the world works and seek to manipulate the situation rather than experience a situation at a more honest level. I think it would be unfortunate if the mechanics of this exercise facilitated that sort of behavior.
  Anyways, your project sounds fascinating and if there is anything I can do to help in any way (even if its just brainstorming), please feel free to contact me in whatever manner you are comfortable with.

[Ian Mclean]

What do you think of using character sheets in a college class to manage the capabilties and feedback of the player-character? (here after referred to as Scholar)

Rather than the standard statistical sheet, I am thinking the character sheet for this game would be more akin to a personality profile with accomplishments. I've been developing a LARP which I've been using to develop this class. Just the Character creation portion. I divide the character sheet into four primary components: Path of Enlightenment, Legacy, Social Links, and Portfolio.

How do you think this might benefit this game?

The Lower three portions are still as yet relatively undefined as I have been focused on the description and definition of the character first and foremost. Conceivably, I could use this sheet with a more standard type of Resume + Porfolio to produce a character sheet that is representative of the player both in class and outside. I was also thinking that maybe a Team Character Sheet might be an interesting avenue to explore as well.

I really appreciate all the feedback I've gotten so far and I look forward to future posts.

[Ian Mclean]

Your Path of Enlightenment details the values, principles and methods of your character in day to day living, and particularly when the you are challenged. This is one of the systems of feedback; you are rewarded for supporting your path and pursuing it. When you act in accordance with your principles, when you champion one of your values, when you fulfill one of your roles, you are rewarded and correspondingly you are penalized for acting in ways that are incongruent with your values, principles, and roles.

Your Legacy details the tasks, objectives, projects and programs that you aspire to fulfill during the many phases of your life. Your legacy specifically refers to the transcendent goal you hold that is most likely inherited or that you will pass down to future pupils who will seek to fulfill it.

Tasks (AKA Short term) are goals which one seeks to fulfill as close to the now as is reasonably possible.

Objectives (AKA Mid-term) are goals which one seeks to fulfill by completing aggregates of tasks; you usually expect objectives to take considerably more time than tasks, but you expect to complete them within the foreseeable future.

Projects (AKA Long-term) are goals which one seeks to fulfill by completing aggregates of objectives; you usually expect projects to take considerably more time than tasks, but you expect to possibly complete them within you current phase of life.

Programs (AKA Life-time, Life-term, Lifestyle) are goals which one seeks to fulfill by completing aggregates of projects; you generally fulfill programs by constant practice and completion of related projects, but you expect to pursue lifestyle goals to the day you cease.

Once again you are rewarded for fulfilling your many goals and penalized by giving up on your dreams.

Social Links detail the people and organizations connected to you; Usually, you have influence on these people and organizations. They may take the form of contacts within a specific domain of endeavor, status or position in any number of social institutions, or prestige one has garnered amongst one's peers.

Portfolio details the contributions you've made to others in your life, commitments you've made and delivered upon, things you've built or done, and the various notable achievements you managed to date.

As you can see the concept for the last two needs development. I feel that this system could be hybridized for the purposes of the classroom. It would be congruent with the college life. I feel it could be used to chronicle the scholar's traversal from beginning to end and give them an idea of who they've been and who they are now.

This of course is simply a character creation and feedback system; it still needs the other portions to function. The question that needs answering is "Would it be worth the time to develop a classroom game around this character development concept?"