Foundations of Interactive Game Design, W09

CMPS 80K
Winter 2009
Lecture: MWF 2:00-3:10pm, Media Theater M110
Lab location: BE 109
Website: http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/classes/cmps080k/Winter09/

Last modified: 9 March 2009

About This Course

This course focuses on the elements that make computer games compelling — from their rules and simulated worlds to their stories and social experiences. Over the quarter, students will collaborate in two-person teams to design a working computer game. Students in the course will be able to check out game consoles (NES, SNES, N64, PS2, Wii, XBox 360, PS3) and notable games from the Science and Engineering Library. Readings will include work by influential game designers and game studies theorists. Lectures are designed to invite student discussion. The course labs will teach the use of the Game Maker game development environment, as well as provide a place to discuss design ideas, game analysis concepts, and related subjects. No programming experience is necessary.

Lecture Faculty

Noah Wardrip-Fruin
office: E2 271
office hours: W 3:30-5pm

Lab Faculty

Anne Sullivan (coordinating TA)
email: anne /at/ soe /dot/ ucsc /dot/ edu
office: E2 393
office hours: W 3:30-5pm

Ken Hullett
email: khullett /at/ soe /dot/ ucsc /dot/ edu
office: E2 393
office hours: Th 2:00-3:30pm

Chris Lewis
email: cflewis /at/ soe /dot/ ucsc /dot/ edu
office: E2 393
office hours: T 12:30-2pm

W, 10am-12pm: Chris Lewis
W, 12-2pm: Ken Hullett
Th, 12-2pm: Ken Hullett
Th, 2-4pm: Chris Lewis
Th, 4-6pm: Anne Sullivan

Materials

Required textbook and software:

• Rules of Play, by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman
• Game Maker 7, Pro version recommended (Windows only, also available in campus labs, runs well on Macs under Boot Camp or VMWare Fusion)

Recommended book:

• The Game Maker's Apprentice, by Jacob Habgood and Mark Overmars

General Course Notes

Making contact:

• Course issues and questions. Questions about course issues and assignments should start at the class forum. First check to see if a question like yours has already been answered. If it has not, and your question does not raise privacy concerns, post it. If you have a question that requires privacy, or if you are not able to get a satisfactory answer through the forums, ask the TA for your section directly. Sending email and coming to office hours are the best routes. If necessary, you can also ask questions during the office hours of one of the other TAs.
• Contact timing. If you have a question about an assignment, please ask at least 48 hours before the assignment is due. With a class this size it isn't possible to answer large amounts of last-minute email, or see a large number of students in the final office hours before a deadline.
• Contacting the professor. To contact the professor directly, the easiest route is to attend his office hours. Please do not email the professor directly unless you have an issue you cannot discuss with your section TA (such as a dispute with your TA).

Policies:

• Illness or emergency. The UCSC health center does not provide medical excuses. In recognition of this, you should simply email your TA before any lecture or lab meeting that you are too ill to attend. Every student, regardless of illness, will have their quiz with the lowest grade dropped from the grading process. If you miss more than one quiz due to illness, please contact your TA. Similarly, if an assignment will be unavoidably late due to illness, please contact your TA. The same policies apply for family emergencies, transportation failures, and so on.
• Accommodations. If you qualify for classroom accommodations because of a disability, please submit your Accommodation Authorization from the Disability Resource Center (DRC) to the professor during his office hours in a timely manner, preferably within the first two weeks of the quarter. Contact DRC at 459-2089 V, 459-4806 TTY, http://drc.ucsc.edu/.
• Academic integrity. Of course, academic integrity is expected of all students. All answers on quizzes should come from your memory of course readings. All ideas and writing in the multi-game analysis should be yours unless credited to others (and properly cited). All project work presented as yours should be carried out by you. And so on.

Grading:

• Grade components.
  • Section participation: 5%
  • Five unannounced reading quizzes (given at lectures, lowest grade dropped): 16%
  • Two Game Maker tutorials: 10%
  • Multi-game analysis paper: 15%
  • Project team selection: 1%
  • Project concept document: 5%
  • Project work breakdown and schedule: 1%
  • Project progress report: 1%
  • Project prototype: 10%
  • Playtestable project: 1%
  • Completed project (game, instructions, and demonstration): 25%
  • Final exam: 10%
• Late assignments. All assignment grades are reduced by 10% for each day late. If you miss the lab at which your assignment was due, it is your responsibility to deliver it to your TA's office.

Week 1

January 7:
Course overview, key issues in understanding computer games.
Read: Preface (pp. xii-xv), About This Book (pp. 1-9) of Rules of Play.
Lecture slides.

Section 1:
Introduction to sections and Game Maker. Sprites, sounds, objects, events, and rooms.
Assigned: Game Maker tutorial #1, "Your First Game." Minimum customization: a different sprite. If you can: One or more additional clown(s), operating based on different rules. Due week 2.

January 9:
Read: Chapter 3 (Meaningful Play, pp. 30-37) and Chapter 4 (Design, pp. 38-47)
Read: Stella, chapter 1 (pages 1-17) of Racing the Beam by Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost
Lecture slides.

Week 2

January 12:
Read: Chapter 5 (Systems, pp. 48-55) and Chapter 6 (Interactivity, pp. 56-69) of Rules of Play.
Lecture slides.

January 14:
Guest lecture: Jim Whitehead (UCSC)
Read: Chapter 7 (Defining Games, pp. 71-83), Chapter 8 (Defining Digital Games, pp. 85-91), Chapter 9 (The Magic Circle, pp. 93-99) in Rules of Play.
Outline of tutorial #2 and team selection.
Lecture slides.

Section 2:
Games, teams, and more Game Maker. Variables, properties, collision detection, lives, damage, and more.
Due: Game Maker tutorial #1, customized. Graded in section.
Assigned: Team selection for game design projects, due week 3.
Assigned: Game Maker tutorial #2, "A Scrolling Shooter." Minimum completion: through "Scores, lives, and damage" section. Minimum customization: Change the appearance of one interface element, such as the health bar. If you can: Complete the tutorial, then add something more — a boss battle, a new form of movement, or something else. Due week 3.

January 16:
Read: Chapter 11 (Defining Rules, pp. 119-125), Chapter 12 (Rules on Three Levels, pp. 127-139) of Rules of Play.
Lecture slides.

Week 3

January 19:
No class, Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday

January 21:
Read: Chapter 13 (The Rules of Digital Games, pp. 141-149), Chapter 14 (Games as Emergent Systems, pp. 151-171) of Rules of Play.
Outline of game design concept assignment.
Lecture slides.

Section 3:
Discussing game design concepts, Game Maker's characteristics, project platform options.
Due: Team selection for game design projects (collected)
Due: Game Maker tutorial #2, customized. Graded in section.
Assigned: Concepts for game design projects, due week 4.

January 23:
Read: Replayability, Part 2: Game Mechanics, by Ernest Adams (may require registration)
Read: Chapter 20 (Games as Systems of Conflict, pp. 249-265) in Rules of Play
Lecture slides.

Week 4

January 26:
Visitor: Robert Mitchell (Sony Online)
Read: Finding New Worlds, chapter 1 (pages 1-19) of Play Between Worlds by TL Taylor

January 28:
Read: Chapter 22 (Defining Play, pp. 300-311), Chapter 23 (Games as the Play of Experience, pp. 312-327) in Rules of Play.
Outline of game project work breakdown and prototype.
Lecture slides.

Section 4:
Discussion of work breakdown, prototype, related issues
Due: Game concept document.
Assigned: Game project work breakdown, due week 5.
Assigned: Game project prototype, due week 6.

January 30:
Visitor: Steven Dow (Stanford University)
Read: The Future of Games (specifically, what people thought of the future 10 years ago)
Read: The Future of Games from a Design Perspective (what one of those people thought five years later)
View: Robbie Cooper's video logs of people playing games

Week 5

February 2:
Read: Chapter 24 (Games as the Play of Pleasure, pp. 328-361) in Rules of Play.
Lecture slides.

February 4:
Read: Chapter 25 (Games as the Play of Meaning, pp. 363-373) in Rules of Play.
Read: The Game Mechanics of Enlightenment, an interview with Tracy Fullerton
Lecture slides.

Section 5:
Prototypes, mechanics, platforms.
Due: Game project work breakdown

February 6:
Read: Pages 1-54 of Procedural Rhetoric, chapter 1 of Persuasive Games by Ian Bogost.
Lecture slides.

Week 6

February 9:
Read: Games Phone Home, by Ian Bogost.
Read: Turning the Tables on In-Game Ad Design, by Ian Bogost. (May require free registration.)
Lecture slides.

February 11:
Read: Chapter 26 (Games as Narrative Play, pp. 377-419) in Rules of Play
Outline of game project progress report and multi-game analysis essay.
Lecture slides.

Section 6:
Prototypes, procedural rhetoric, game analysis.
Due: Game project prototype.
Assigned: Game project progress report, due week 7.
Assigned: Multi-game analysis essay, due week 8.

February 13:
Visitor: Richard Hilleman (Electronic Arts)
Read: "The Eliza Effect" and "Computer Game Fictions," by Noah Wardrip-Fruin.

Week 7

February 16:
No class, President's Day holiday

February 18:
Visitor: Jim Whitehead (UCSC)
Design history and level design for Shmups (Shoot-em-ups) also known as STG (shooting)
Read: A Preliminary Poetics, by Michael Mateas.
Lecture slides.

Section 7:
Game analysis, game project progress.
Due: Game project progress report.

February 20:
Visitor: Steve Peterson (game designer)
Read: The SimCity Effect, by Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Lecture slides.

Week 8

February 23:
Guest lecture: Chris Lewis (UCSC)
Read: Chapter 27 (Games as the Play of Simulation, pp. 420-459) in Rules of Play
Lecture slides.

February 25:
Guest lectures: Anne Sullivan and Henry Gromet (UCSC)
Lecture slides: Sullivan and Gromet

Section 8:
Completing games.
Due: Multi-game analysis essay.
Assigned: Playtestable version of game project, due week 9.

February 27:
Read: Chapter 28 (Games as Social Play, pp. 460-489) in Rules of Play
Lecture slides.

Week 9

March 2:
Read: Chapter 29 (Defining Culture, pp. 505-513), Chapter 30 (Games as Cultural Rhetoric, pp. 514-535) in Rules of Play
Lecture slides.

March 4:
Read: Chapter 31 (Games as Open Culture, pp. 536-555), Chapter 32 (Games as Cultural Resistance, pp. 556-569) in Rules of Play

Section 9:
Playtesting, completing games.
Due: Playtestable version of game project.
Assigned: Final version of game project, due week 10.

March 6:
Visitors: Edmund McMillen, Alex Austin, and Tommy Refenes (Cryptic Sea)
Read: Road To The IGF: McMillen and Himsl's Coil by Eric Caoili, This is a Cry for Help by L.B. Jeffries, and Destructoid interview: Edmund McMillen, creator of tar balls and evil vaginas by Anthony Burch.

Week 10

March 9:
Guest lecture: Ken Hullett
Read: Semiotic Domains by James Paul Gee.

March 11:
Read: Chapter 33 (Games as Cultural Environment, pp. 570-587) in Rules of Play and Formal Abstract Design Tools by Doug Church

Section 10:
Presenting final games.
Due: Final version of game project.

March 13:
Final exam review
Lecture slides.

Week 11: Game Judging and Final

March 16:
Game project demonstration of best games in class, in Media Theater (external judges)

Final exam: As officially scheduled — Friday, March 20th from 12-3 pm in Media Theater M110