Week 1:

Jan 12
Discuss-

* overview of course
* creative practice in cross disciplinary collaborations

* studio practice

* questionnaire
definitions.html
What is a game? Why do people play games? A Taxonomy of GamesThe Art of Computer Game Design by Chris Crawford
http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/peabody/game-book/Coverpage.html

assignment: bring a sample of best work to next class

Jan 15
Look at best works (not a critique)

Read:

* Your personal research. Please cite your references in your presentation.

* Read Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals
by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman Unit 3: PLAY pg. 298-361.
Defining Play
Games as the Play of Experience, Meaning, Pleasure

Week 2:

Jan 19 Mon OFF Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Jan 22 Students show Assignment # 1 Personal Game Architecture

Discuss - Topics:
Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals
by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman Unit 3: PLAY pg. 298-361.
Defining Play
Games as the Play of Experience, Meaning, Pleasure
Game History: http://www.arts.rpi.edu/~ruiz/ArtofGaming/Gamehistory.html

Games as Art:
In 1957 a few experimental European groups stemming from the radical tradition of dadaism and surrealism, but seeking to avoid the cooption to which those movements succumbed, came together to form the Situationist International. The name came from their aim of liberating everyday life through the creation of open-ended, participatory “situations” (as opposed to fixed works of art) — an aim which naturally ran up against the whole range of material and mental obstacles produced by the present social order. Over the next decade the situationists developed an increasingly incisive critique of the global “spectacle-commodity system” and of its bureaucratic leftist pseudo-opposition, and their new methods of agitation helped trigger the May 1968 revolt in France. Since then — although the SI itself was dissolved in 1972 — situationist theories and tactics have continued to inspire currents in dozens of countries all over the world.
Other Situationist links
www.nap.edu
http://www2.cddc.vt.edu/situationist/si/definitions.html
BASIC BANALITIES
http://www2.cddc.vt.edu/situationist/si/play.html

Read:
* Beyond Productivity: Information Technology, Innovation and Creativity, edited by William Mitchell, Alan Inouye and Marjory Blumenthal, The National Academies Press, Wash., D.C.
Computer Games, Cultural Challenges, Overcoming Preconceived Notions about Computer Scientists and Artist and Designers
www.nap.edu

* Pesce, Mark. The Playful World: How Technology is Transforming Our Imagination, New York: Balantine, 2000. (printed) also links at http://www.playfulworld.com/
* Situationist International http://www2.cddc.vt.edu/situationist/si/play.html

* Everything But the Words: A Dramatic Writing Primer for Gamers, Hal Barwood http://www.gdconf.com/archives/2000/barwood.doc
* Storytelling in Action, Bob Bates http://www.gdconf.com/archives/2000/bates.doc

* Beyond Productivity: Information Technology, Innovation and Creativity, ed. by William Mitchell, Alan Inouye and Marjory Blumenthal, The National Academies Press, Wash., D.C.
Computer Games, Cultural Challenges, Overcoming Preconceived Notions about Computer Scientists and Artist and Designers

Week 3:

Jan 26
Discuss: The Art of Telling a Story: Hal Barwood, Bob Bates, &
Issues in interdisciplinary endeavor in Beyond Productivity: Information Technology, Innovation and Creativity

Topics: Trans disciplinary Team building/Scenario Planning/dynamics of collaboration/role playing

Visionaries of the Future:
* The 1939 New York World's Fair:
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/DISPLAY/39wf/front.htm
* The Futurists

Jan 29
Studio work with trans disciplinary teams
Roy Lichtenstein, John Heartfield, others, comics as cultural barometers

overview: http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/peabody/game-book/Coverpage.html

Game Design Fundamentals

Gaming Paradigms/Types of Games & Delivery Systems

Read: "Agency", Hamlet on the Holodeck by Janet Murray in, Multimedia from Wagner to Virtual Reality, edited by Randall Packer and Ken Jordan

Week 4:

Feb 2

discuss: Murray and the pleasures of navigation, the story of the maze, rapture of the rhizome, giving shape to anxiety, the journey story and the pleasure of problem solving, games into stories, games as symbolic dramas, the contest story, the interactor as author.

review:
The Game Design Document: gamedesigndocument.htm

Read: Issues:
Games Grow Up,
A Game Boy in the Cross Hairs,
Beyond Shoot your Friends
http://www.cpandfriends.com/writing/digital-illusion.html
Addictive Technologies http://www.cpandfriends.com/writing/addictiv.html
The Addictiveness of Games, Steve Meretsky Download Document

Feb 5
Assignment # 2 due: scenario planning games “Yet to Come”

Discuss readings: Games Reflecting Culture, behavior, violence issues, gender issues, and addiction

ABOUT WAR: REALITY: GAMES & GUTS

Week 5:

Feb 9
Sublimation

See Video & Discuss, An interview with Lt Col. Grossman
Stop Teaching our Children to Kill

ABOUT WAR: REALITY: GAMES & GUTS Part II

Issues & ethics::osma games nytJanuary 10.htm

most current: www.americasarmy.com (absence of blood and gore)
tried and true: www.counter-strike.net (lots of blood)
Tom Clancy based games: http://www.redstorm.com/ (minimal blood)

Feb 12
Assignments # 3 due:Game Prototype Phase I – Story board

Read:
The Construction of Experience: Interface as Content David Rokeby

http://homepage.mac.com/davidrokeby/experience.html

The Art and Science of Level Design Cliff Bleszinski http://www.gdconf.com/archives/proceedings/2000/bleszinski.doc

For Short Study # 5 option: (Motion Capture option)
Game Character Creation Paul Douglas, Toby Gard http://www.gdconf.com/archives/proceedings/2000/gard.doc

Motion Editing: Principles and Practice, Susan Van Baerle http://www.gdconf.com/archives/proceedings/2000/vanbaerle.doc

On the Future of Real-time Characters, Joby Otero
http://www.gdconf.com/archives/proceedings/2000/otero.doc

“Perfect Model: Georgeous, No Complaints….., ”
“Do Androids Long for Mom?”

Week 6:

Feb 16 OFF but Feb 17 ON Follow a MONDAY schedule on Tues.
Csikszentmihali, M., Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991.
Inherent in the escape from reality are factors that are akin to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concepts of flow experience where the following occur: 1) a challenging activity that requires skills, 2) the merging of action and awareness, 3) clear goals and feedback, 4) concentration on the task at hand, 5) the paradox of control, 6) the loss of self consciousness and 7) the transformation of time.

Csikszentmihali, M., Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991.

also see "Communication and Community in digital Enteratinment Services" pre study research report by Aki Jarvinen, Satu Helio and Frans Mayra, University of Tampere, Hypermedia Laboratory pg.20-26.
http://tampub.uta.fi/tup/951-44-5432-4.pdf

Feb 19
Discuss: Game Theory
Game Theory in gaming, economics and beyond

Read: The Lost Dimension by Paul Virilio

Week 7:

Feb 23
Discuss Virilio, Rokeby,

Bleszinski/ MOCap readings
Motion Capture:
Synthespian Design: what is a synthespian?

Motion

Issues in synthetic character creation

http://www.realsimone.com/

Feb 26 Assignments # 4 due: Dynamic Game Study (or Assignment # 5. (Optional for extra credit or instead of short study #4) Avatar, Synthespian Design and Issues of Synthetic Characters

Week 8:

March 1

Reviews of Mid-term Project Game Study Phase II

March 4

Reviews of Mid-term Project Game Study Phase II

Week 9: OFF SPRING BREAK

Week 10:

March 15

Studio work & research
Games as Art/ Art as Games
high & low art
art_game.html

March 18

Studio work & research

using game engines/ patches: http://www.axisvm.nl/gendergame.html

AnneMarie Schleiner: Experimental software

Net and other game artists

visiting artist

Week 11          

March 22 Game Prototype Phase III – polishing and refinement of methodology, delivery system, etc.

March 25 Studio work & research (independent working studio)

Week 12          

March 29 Studio work & research

Please remember that your completed game project is a purposeful work which goes beyond conventional style gaming paradigms and shows depth of creative goals, social responsibility, and quality of interaction. The game must be functional, or at the very least demonstrate some dynamic game play with a high end trailer illustrating the game play concepts, and it must be accompanied by a completed, (web ready, stand alone) game design document. (Well designed posters can also accompany the game and will be considered for additional credit.)
see: gamedesigndocument.htm

April 1 Studio work & research

Week 13          

April 5 - Phase IV- Final Project Pre-Reviews

April 8 Studio work & research

Week 14          

April 12

April 15

Week 15  

April 19

Phase V- Final Completed Game Project due- submission day for your two cds containing all your work from the semester for final grading purposes
- CD # 1: your game and your game design document in html format with all relevant files
in a folder labeled: (your name), final project
- CD #2: all perfected short studies in a folder labeled (your name), short studies

April 22

Week 16 April 26   

End of Semester Review - new developments for the future

Simulation and synthespians
http://www.kurzweilai.net/news/frame.html?main=/news/news_single.html?id%3D965

Another Five Years from Now http://www.gdconf.com/archives/proceedings/2002/david_braben.ppt
Emerging Delivery Systems and Genres