Ramsey's CSI 294 - SpTp Intro to Game Dev - Fall `19

1. After 8/29/19: Intro Provide an example of how you will endeavor to keep your group, table, classroom and environment free of toxicity.
   Reading for Next Class: Ch. 1
2. After 9/3/19: Take two games that you enjoy. Swap one basic element. How does the play experience change?
   Reading for Next Class: Ch. 2
3. After 9/5/19: Name the goals of your favorite game. What would make achieving that goal VERY easy? How did the designer use constraint? What would happen if you swapped indirect or direct actions?
   Reading for Next Class: Ch. 4
4. After 9/10/19: Pick a sandbox game that you do not know very well. Perhaps that is Minecraft, Scrap Mechanic, Kerbal Space Program, Oxygen Not Included, and most survival games probably fit in this category. Define the action theory for that game. How is this different than the action theory for a game that you have played more often?
   Reading - CATCHUP! - Chs: 1,2, 4
   Homework - Simple Game Idea Due 9/17
5. After 9/12/19: In the game idea that you are bringing for next class, define how it fits in with the 5 parts of Crampton-Smith. What kind of player types could exist in your game idea? What would they do to achieve their results (and otherwise fit into one of these player types)?
   Reading: Ch 9
   Don't forget HW DUE BEFORE CLASS 9/17 with journals
6. After 9/17/19: How did idea speed dating work for your game? What are the benefits to this approach to generating ideas? What are the drawbacks? When was it most useful for your game idea? When was it the least useful? What new ideas did you come away with?
   Reading: Ch 6
7. After 9/19/19: What are the game design values of the game you are pitching? Be sure to tackle all 8 elements.
   Reading: Ch 5
   Don't Forget Fully Revised Game Idea Due BEFORE CLASS 9/24 - bring printed copy
8. After 9/24/19: No journal today.
   Reading: Ch 8
9. After 9/26/19: Take all the brainstorming ideas and manage them into 4 piles. 1) Usable and great and want to integrate 2) Usuable and okay and good idea but may or may not integrate 3) Unusuable or unsure if it is usable 4) Unusuable. Why does each of the items in 3 and 4 not work for your game? How would integrating them change your game in a way that you do not want?
   Reading: Ch 3
   TD- Due Tues
10. After 10/1/19: How did your group decided on consensus rules? Did the paper exercise clarify any existing thoughts about how your game would be played? If so, why did this happen? If not, what mechanism do you think would assist in that endeavor at the "paper" stage.
    Reading: Ch 10
    FULL TD Due 10/8
11. After 10/3/19: No Journal
    Reading: Ch 11
    FULL TD - Due 10/8 - Find a Unity Tutorial that is most appropriate for your game.
12. After 10/8/19: Was the TD game one you'd be likely to play more than once? Explain why. What did your group decide to modify to change the experience from the base tutorial game?
    Reading: Ch 7
    Partial workday next time - if you can, bring laptops on Tuesday!
13. After 10/15/19: Did any of the lenses shape how you'd want to make your game? How? Why? Which lens was most useful to think about? Think of a game you have played. Do you believe the game designers likely looked through any of the lenses we discussed while designing that game?
    Reading: Ch 12
    TD Improvements Due 10/21 - DEMOS ARE IN CLASS 10/22
14. After 11/14/19: These lenses today are some of my absolute favorite. This is an extended journal worth 100 xp. Please give it the time and effort those points should require! It turns out that many of the aspects of game design and the lenses especially can be applied directly to aspects of our own lives. Pick a simple aspect of your life. For example, eating dinner, walking to class, watching netflix, doing math homework, playing a video game, or anything that you like. Apply some of the lens questions to your simple task.
    1. Can you change it to make it feel magical? How?
    2. Can you change it to make the world a better place? How?
    3. Can you change it to make it help people? How?
    4. Is it worth my time? Why?
    5. Are you doing it for good reasons? What are they?
    If you answer No, to any of the above, you must give a compelling reason why it is NEVER possible to do so. Even for a task that, at first, appears to be focused only on yourself, find ways to answer the questions in the affirmative. Let's leave our spaces and places better than we found them and lift one another up. In return, we'll receive the same.