News & Updates

December 15, 2010

Here is a reminder about your final presentations THIS FRIDAY:

TIME: Friday, December 17 from 6:00-9:20pm
LOCATION: 644 Mudd (our usual classroom)

Your final presentation serves two main purposes:

It should demonstrate the final state of your game, acting as a "proof of concept" that your game has a solid design. The implementation does not need to be storefront quality, but the design itself should be polished. Put differently, if your team (or a much larger and more well-funded team) were to spend more time creating your game as you have designed it now, that game should be something that would sustain your target audience's interest.
It should also discuss the entire process you underwent this semester: where you started, how you made changes, why you made changes, what was the outcome, what worked, what did not work, where you would go next, and why. Regardless of how your final game turned out, we would like to see that you have thought critically about the game design challenges you have faced over the course of the semester and that you have gained a good understanding about how to approach game design in the future. If you can demonstrate (via your articulation of your game's merits and shortcomings) that you would build a better game if given another chance (like in a certain 6000-level course next semester, for example), avoiding the same mistakes you had this semester, then you should be fine here.

Your presentation should last roughly 30 minutes. You should practice your presentation in advance and should be prepared to begin without delay, even if we find ourselves ahead of schedule. Refreshments will be provided, and we'd like each of you to be there for all the presentations. Here is the final schedule:

6:00pm-6:40pm: Group 1: Force of Nature
6:40pm-7:20pm: Group 2: Team GNOP
7:20pm-8:00pm: Group 3: Team Amass6699
8:00pm-8:40pm: Group 4: Team FaceCraft
8:40pm-9:20pm: Group 5: Team Zombie Quest

Please let us know as soon as possible if you have any questions.

December 11, 2010

The lecture on writing design docs has been posted to the Course Schedule page.

October 18, 2010

This announcement brings some good news and some bad news. The good news is that we are holding the second round of pitches during class instead of over the weekend, to avoid scheduling conflicts. The bad news is that our guest industry insiders will be here THIS WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, so please come to this Wednesday's class with a revised concept pitch.

October 17, 2010

The FADT/MDA lecture has been posted to the Course Schedule page.

October 6, 2010

The assignment summary below has been updated slightly to clarify the Peer Review due Wednesday, October 13. The Peer Review should be written as a group assignment and not individually as specified before.

September 30, 2010

The Intro to Game Design lecture has been posted to the Course Schedule page.

September 29, 2010

Here is a recap of the assignments that are due in the next few weeks. Note that this is the biggest "wave" of assignments that you'll see during the course of the semester -- the point is to play and analyze a lot of games up front so you get to focus on your group projects, knowledge in hand, later on.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: All group project deliverables must be posted on your group's website for all to access. All individual assignments should be pasted in the body of an e-mail to Bernie, Brian, and Megan, AS WELL AS ATTACHED in either .docx, .doc, or.txt format (in that order of preference).

Due Oct. 6 by 6:10pm:

GROUP CONCEPT PITCH: Each group will have 10 minutes during class to present the concept for their game, after which there will be a Q&A period of several minutes. Please give everyone a chance to speak during the presentation. The concept pitch will, in essence, give the audience a taste of what the final game will feel like to play. It is important to liven up the experience with pictures, themes, moods, and/or mock screenshots and gameplay scenarios that put the audience right in the heart of the action so they can see what the game will be like to play (you can also liken the game to movies or other games that are similar in feel). This pitch is, in essence, graded Pass/Fail (Pass if you give the pitch and Fail if you don't give the pitch or don't show up to class). It is mainly a forum for getting feedback on your game ideas early on.
GROUP ASSIGNMENT: Write a concept document for your group's game that gives a feel for what the final game will be like to play. An actual game demo is not required - this is essentially just a document form of the concept pitch you will make on this day. This document, like all other group project deliverables, must be posted on your group's website for all to access.
INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT: Write an analysis of the board game Lost Cities using the FADT framework proposed by Doug Church. Your analysis does not have to be a formal essay with an introduction and a conclusion -- a 2-3 page report that is split into sections about Intention, Perceivable Consequence, and Story will work just fine. This assignment, like all other individual assignments, should be pasted in the body of an e-mail to Bernie, Brian, and Megan, AS WELL AS ATTACHED in either .docx, .doc, or.txt format (in that order of preference).

Due Oct. 13 by 6:10pm:

GROUP ASSIGNMENT: Please write a brief review (as a team) of your thoughts about each of the other team's concept pitches from Oct. 6. Then, post the review as a single document on your group website.
GROUP ASSIGNMENT: Each team must play two (2) games per player together as a group. Each game must be from the list of recommended games (see the Group Resources page) OR be a direct derivative of a game on that list (e.g. Mario Party 8 counts for Mario Party). Since each group has 5 or more members, each group will play 10 or more games. Your choices for those games have two limitations: (1) At least one game from each of the categories in the list of recommended games must be played; and (2) Each person must play at least 2 games that they have never played prior to this class. Please post either a document or a table on your group website that states which games you played and who was "new" to each game.
INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT: Write two (2) gameplay reports for two of the games you played with your team that were new to you. The gameplay reports should give a brief overview of the game, its core gameplay mechanics, and anything else you found interesting about the game. They should also include something that you learned from the game (from a game design perspective) that would help you as you try to design your own game. The reports need not be more than a page in length.

Due Oct. 20 by 6:10pm:

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT: Write an analysis of the board game Settlers of Catan using the MDA framework proposed by Robin Hunicke et al. This paper can be similar in format to the FADT report; it does not need to be a formal essay with an introduction and conclusion.
INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT: Write an analysis of the Facebook game Sorority Life using the MDA framework proposed by Robin Hunicke et al. This paper can be similar in format to the FADT report; it does not need to be a formal essay with an introduction and conclusion. This particular assignment has been brought back from last year by popular demand.

Please let us know if you have any questions regarding any of the assignments.

September 28, 2010

The Course Schedule page has been updated to reflect the guest workshop by Tim Stellmach. Teams will pitch their game concepts next Wednesday, October 6 in class, and will post their concept docs to their group websites as well. The due dates for the gameplay reports and MDA papers have been pushed back by a week.

The TA office hours, on the bottom of the Syllabus page, have also been finalized.

September 19, 2010

The finalized groups are now on the Groups page! Please check that the final formations are accurate and let us know you find any errors. Also, be sure to:

Create a simple website for your group as stated in the Syllabus. All group project deliverables will be posted here as well as e-mailed to Bernie, Brian, and Megan. Please see Bernie if you need help setting up a website.
E-mail Brian a photo of yourself for the Groups page if you haven't done so already.

September 10, 2010

Since the class has roughly 30 students, we will be getting an additional TA. Megan Myers was the TA for last year's course and is reprising her role this year. Her e-mail address is mm2614@columbia.edu and her office hours are TBD.

September 9, 2010

A few quick announcements:

Please send Bernie and Brian a blurb describing which groups you were part of on the first day of class, your thoughts on your current groups, and whether there are other people you would like to work together with. This can be a quick e-mail -- we will finalize the groups next week, so it's not necessary to know everything at this point, but please send this information by end of day Friday. If you have a full group formed already, send us the composition of the group (including member roles) as well as the information above. We will ask for more specific information about groups later.
To help facilitate group formation and communication between groups, please send Brian a 120x160 (portrait orientation) photo of yourself as well as your UNI. He'll post these on the class website as he gets them, and will use them in the Group listing page when groups are formed.
Bernie's office hours are one hour before class, by appointment, but Brian's office hours are not yet set. If there is any time you see working well for you or your group, let Brian know and he'll try to make his office hours accommodate that.
Both Understanding Comics and The Game Design Reader will be in the library reserves sometime next week.

September 8, 2010

Today was the first day of class. Here is a reminder of items you are required to procure:

Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud
One copy of the card game Lost Cities for every two group members. If you have an odd number of group members, round up.
One copy of the board game Settlers of Catan for every four group members. If you have more than four group members, round down; otherwise, round up.

Also, if you'd like to go the extra mile and learn some really neat stuff (which may even help you in your game design projects), check out:

The Game Design Reader, ed. Salen & Zimmerman