Schedule

Because this course depends so much on the particular interests and backgrounds of those participating, this schedule is necessarily incomplete. We will fill it out as we go along and make changes to what’s already there. Nevertheless, this first draft of the schedule should give you an idea of the themes and activities we will participate in. In the beginning, we will dive into the subject matter, and as we become comfortable, each of you will prototype a local “game”. You will then make pitches to the other students, the shark tank, to try to gain coworkers to realize your vision. Once teams are set, the goal is to produce the most powerful experience you can, putting together mobile media to dive into the city. You will produce a working prototype of this idea, run it through public playtests, and produce two pieces of writing about your game (a Kickstarter-type page, and a mock conference proposal). In addition to these post-mortems, various other supplemental materials may be warranted on a case by case basis. The idea is to finish the semester with enough preliminary results to make specific plans for pursuing your vision, whether that be community organizing, publication, conference proposals, or seeking funding to develop your project further.

Notice that the proposed schedule below only includes 12 weeks. This allows us 4 weeks in which to schedule trips off campus and work with community members and experts. We will work together in the first couple weeks to determine these other opportunities. Notice that the assigned readings and other media are somewhat sparse. This is to give us a bare minimum of shared experience across a number of disciplines and knowledge bases relevant to our field of inquiry. It is not sufficient to produce expertise. It is expected that you will use this partial reading list as a jumping off point to finding other relevant work to inform your thinking and designs.

Week 1 – Introductions

Take a deep breath and jump in.

This course is likely to be a pretty different place than many others, and asks you to go different places in different ways. Today’s intro should help everyone feel welcome and make sure you’re ready and willing to go further.

There’s a lot to learn about, and much of this will be brand new to a lot or all of you.

  • Our city – what is out there and how to get involved
  • Videogames – how they work and how to make use of them
  • Game design – turns out a lot of people can do this and you don’t need to be a programmer
  • Mobile – figure out what is this ubiquitous technology good for

The word we do is at the join of these themes and the only reasonable way for newcomers to tackle something big like this in 16 short weeks is to jump right in. There’s a term that gets used a lot in the games and learning literature “performance before competence”. Classes typically prepare you by having you learn how to do something and then maybe someday you will apply it. Good games and we will do the reverse. We will get involved in these areas and hopefully by the end begin to understand what’s really involved. All the hard, worthwhile work in this world works the same way. You don’t really know what it is or how to succeed until you’re there trying.

The first warning is that it can be scary to jump right in. But know that this course is a safe place. You are not judged by what you know or do before we begin but the extent to which your curiosity and effort propel you once we begin. When confused, ask each other questions, and follow your hearts. We are all in this together.

We will begin by getting situated with names, signed up for various services, and some light brainstorming discussions about ABQ and games before exploring campus using an “almost game” to collaboratively map points of interest.

For next week

Read/Watch

Do

  • Fill out a Game Template using markdown. Instructions are in the template.
    You may choose to interview another person to uncover their experience rather than or in addition to describing your own. If this is the case, make it clear. And if the person is willing, identify them and the nature of your relationship with them.
  • Follow up on ideas uncovered in class with siftr.

Week 2 Games and ABQ

In class

Discussions about

  • Games people reported on
  • Details on our campus map
  • Slack, markdown and any of the other tech for class
  • Games and Learning (McGonigal and Gee)
  • How games work (Schell)
  • May’s work and the possibilities and expectations for this course
  • Albuquerque

For next week

Read/watch/listen

Week 3 – Open Space Visitor Center

In Class

We’re having class at the Open Space Visitor Center Sept. 1. Meet there at 3:30. It may not be possible or easy, but my advice is to take the bus there. UNM hands out free passes for the year. Treat it as part of class. It may be a fun, new experience.

There are many reasons to take this trek.

  1. This class is about exploring ABQ. Let’s do some of that together.
  2. This space is designed to inform and produce awareness and action about certain aspects of this city or its past.
    1. Since we want to design games with similar aims, we can learn about how to design in this space.
    2. Since we want to learn about ABQ, these exhibits and activities can help us learn about issues and themes.
  3. We can meet people who might help us find out more about these issues and activities. How else are we going to dig beneath the surface?

We will be meeting with …

For Next Week

This week you are largely on your own, but you need to build momentum and start looking into relevant content (and reflecting publicly on it) to get a feeling for what you want to really get done this semester.

Read

Do

(From last week)

  • Reply to at least one or two of the Game posts written last week.
  • Use any of the media from the last two weeks (or your own sources) to fill out one entry for the Concept/Theme Template for at least one concept or theory you come across, either in assigned readings, independent reading, discussions or other research.

(new)

  • Follow up on content we all read earlier but no one has written anything about. Discuss ideas in readings, respond to others’ posts, share new, relevant ideas, etc. This is especially important for Price’s book, which we have not yet discussed.

Week 4 – Issues, Places, Themes and Variations

In class

  • Follow up on visit to the Open Space visitor center
  • Consolidate brainstormed lists of possible places, issues, and themes that might guide our designs.
  • Discuss Price’s ideas and perspectives.
  • Rupee Collector and Variations on a theme. Game Design 101.

For Next Week

Watch

Kirby Ferguson

More (optional) on Everything is a Remix

Listen

Next, Make

OR

  • A variation on another exhibit/game/etc. link to your prior in the template.

AND

Fill out at least one Place/Issue/Theme to share and describe your local interests in a post written on or linked to via Slack.

Week 5 – Intro to ARIS

In class

  • Discuss your variations from last week
  • ARIS 101 workshop
  • Brainstorm

For Next Week

  • Neighborhood Walk: In a small group, take one of the Neighborhood Walks (except Nob Hill, that’s too easy), or the Plaza-to-Plaza walk.
    Actually go there and take the tour. Take notes, pictures, and conduct interviews about what/who you find there.
  • Find and summarize at least three resources for some of the identified topics.
  • Start talking about what you’d like to dig deep into. Use shared notes about Albuquerque in our time, the book chapters, and the places and themes previously identified. This is an informal assignment, but it needs to be attended to if you are going to find a project in time to work on it.

Week 6 – Recreating Walks with Scrum, Learning about Games for Homework

In Class

  • I will introduce you to Scrum as a means of working in groups to accomplish projects. Our project for the day will be to interpret the 5 neighborhood walks in ARIS. Part of this will be incorporating what you found during your visits.

For Next Week
Read

  • How to do Things with Videogames Introduction and any 1 chapter.

Make

  • Document your chapter in How to do Things with Videogames via a post in Slack or your blog for the rest of the class.
  • Make something for fun in ARIS or with another tool. It should relate to a local place or a theme you have identified, and be playable in 10 minutes or less.

Week 7 – Reconciling Place and Moving to Games

At this point, we have looked at Burque through several lenses, and it is time to take stock of what we’re interested in and how we can find out more. It is also time to switch gears and think about what makes games work and what they’re good for.

In Class

  • Discuss some uses of games and how they might fit a local context.
  • Present your design, have it playtested, and get feedback.

For Next Week
Watch
The Game Layer on Top of the World by Seth Priebatsch

Listen

Do
Find a map of Burque or a portion of it that is intended for a specific rather than general audience. Document how this map abstracts and emphasizes different aspects of life to reach and inform its audience.

Week 8

In Class

  • Share maps. Discuss what maps do not yet exist but which seem useful.
  • Discuss the concept of augmented reality as a strategy to help people find what they need.
  • Work in small groups to iterate your designs. Find places in your design that require more information. Iterate based on the feedback you received last week.

For Next Week

  • Produce a pitch for the Shark Tank. Your proposal form should be online by Sunday night. Comments and questions by Monday night.
  • Practice your talk. You only get 3 minutes.

Week 9 – Project Proposals and Forming Groups

In Class

Each design will get 3 minutes to present and two minutes for Q&A. After, we will vote for 3 top choices to work on. This doesn’t directly mean that the winners are what we are doing for the rest of the semester, but we will eventually arrive at a small number of designs to continue with, each with at least two members. This is a messy process, and we will actually try to produce some parts of them as a way to find out what might be worth continuing with.

For Next Week

  • Begin to figure out how your new team is going to work together. Meet at least once outside class and make a list of elements necessary to research, articulate, and complete your design.

Read

A bit of formal game design theory. My hope is this will help you think about all the internal pieces of your projects in terms of their outcomes through their use.

  • [Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics] by Hunicke,
  • The Designer Creates an Experience in The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell
  • Chapter 4 The Game Consists of Elements in Schell (note: begins on p. 39, there is a missing page from the ToC in the shared pdf).

Write

Contribute to an online discussion on Slack where we try to apply concepts from these texts to our projects.

Week 10 – First Scrum Together

This is a work week. In your newly formed groups, we will run through two scrum-sprint sessions.

For Next Week

Continue work in your groups. Document your progress for me in this first week of independent work.

Watch

Write

Again, on Slack, let’s consider the bearing of this information about motivation on your projects. Consider your audiences, and design decisions you are making that speak to why people are going to want to and continue to play your game (or analogous engagement for other interactive media).

Week 11 – Check In and Push Back

You’ve all had a bit of time to dig into your projects now. Time to think carefully about how we get to the end of the semester. We will make a plan for the last few weeks and get all the ducks in a row about what you need to produce and how you get there.

We will also look to provide feedback on each other’s designs and proposed goals. This is another area where the conceptual framework we’ve been building (about how games work, what mobile has to offer, how to dig into our surroundings, what other media and projects address the same issues, etc.) can be employed to consider specific design choices or understand and improve processes. Giving useful feedback is hard, and to a lesser extent, it is hard to rethink your idea once you’ve built momentum towards production. In all of the projects I’ve seen, each would have been better off to have produced less content of higher quality or which is more thought through.

Here’s the list of all the products you are responsible for in the course of producing your project. More on each of these here.

  • Your design board
  • Design docs
  • Conference Proposal/Post-Mortem
  • Kickstarter
  • Press Kit (well, you don’t need to do anything for this. I just need a couple pieces of media from your Kickstarter to use elsewhere)

Note that the following weeks are loosely structured. I will try to give prescient feedback through what you share. It is your responsibility to share early and often with me and the other students in class. Use Slack. Come to office hours. Ask to add agenda to our class meetings ahead of time so we can be prepared to work on specific issues while we are together.

Listen

Week 12 – No Turning Back Now

This week you will have the chance to get feedback on your game’s progress from me and from members of other teams. We will meet at a relevant location to play them, hopefully on-site.

Have a fifteen minute demo ready. We will rotate in groups so that each group gets feedback from another and from me. Since the place is only relevant to one group, the others will need to find more generic ways to demo. If specific places would be helpful for other teams, the following two weeks should provide opportunities, but they should be scheduled in advance.

For Next Week

Create a rough draft of your Kickstarter and Conference Proposals. Make tough decisions about what you have time to work on and what you need to cut out. Use your design docs and design boards to help make and show this work.

In class, we will assess progress and you will get feedback about the work that remains. We will spend the remaining time looking at problems/questions/progress in the necessary details for your auxiliary products.

Week 13 – Make a Game For Next Year

In Class

If we don’t find another place to go…let’s take a break from the grind of your projects to use our technical skills on a brand new project.

Suggested Themes: Rename the Pit, Find Wolves, Pokemon

For Next Week

Next week, you need a complete version of your final game for an internal playtest and commentary.

Week 14 – Dry Run

You’re never as ready for the public as you think. So this week we will take the time to run through each others’ game demos as you would do on the final day. Take notes on what goes wrong and what shows promise.

For Next Week

Work on your public talks, fix your games, and get those auxiliary documents together.

Week 15 – Turkey

Rough Draft of Paper and Kickstarter due 11/23

We will have practice talks today. If there is time, we may be able to work on specific issues and bugs with games for next week’s public talks and public playtest.

Week 16 – Games Showcase

In this final day, you will show off your completed games. We will invite the general public to hear about and play or demo our games.

Before Finals Week

Finalize your Kickstarter and Conference Proposals. Final drafts of anything to be considered for a grade in this class are due 12/8.

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