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Archive for the ‘Teaching’ CategoryThe main message is that game designers should be able to code. Code is the tool of the trade. (http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2011/03/01/built-on-a-foundation-of-code-game-edu-rant/) I agree that one should be able to design dynamics for games. Designing dynamic is to design code. Understanding algorithms, state machines, behavior trees can be extremely helpful for game design. This said, knowing rudimentary coding can be helpful, knowing more software design can be more helpful. How much one should know about software design to be able to design games? But would math and excel skills also be used for this? Slides for the first lecture. These slides contains information on how to complete the course and examples on how to breakdown games. Deadlines
Lecture 1: Design slides: The Thrsday slides of gameplay design workshop. The Wednesday slides of gameplay design workshop. These slides contain the requirements for getting credits. The deadline for lecture diaries and game design documentations is Fri 12.11. Game Project, 6–15 ECTS AssignmentDesign and develop a fully playable game that is at least beta level
The game should be
In addition, the groups have different mood that they should have in their game. Chapter 4: “Theory of Game Elements” from Järvinen, Aki (2008) Games without Frontiers, Tampere: Tampere University Press. acta.uta.fi/pdf/978-951-44-7252-7.pdf Date: Sat 18.9.2010 klo 10–14 (alternative / re-exam dates will be announced later) Enroll to exam to amanuensis at least 10 days prior the exam date. This info will be available on the http://mlab.taik.fi/studies/master_of_arts/ma_in_new_media_games/ page. MA in New Media is a 2-year degree programme focusing on design for interactive digital media. From the fall2010 on we will offer two specialisation areas: New Media Design and Game Design and Production. The education is project-oriented, combining practice with theory, hands-on with minds-on. The project modules emphasise interdisciplinary and collaborative work, while individual skills are studied in the tools & skills modules, in workshops and through tutored studio work. This two-year programme provides unique possibility for building game design skills while building theoretical and conceptual undertanding on games. The education is project-oriented, combining practice with theory Student will deepen their existing skills in the areas of game design and productions based on a personal study plan. In addition to game design and production courses, the studies can be complemented with courses from related fields such as 3d animation, interactive storytelling, and interaction design. The structure of MA degree studies, Game Design and Production specialization area, 2009-11Studies begin with an orientative starting block entitled Understanding Media and Design. After completing that, through tutoring students choose their focus areas and start to participate in courses, seminars, workshops and study projects. Individual study planning for new students is tutored by a teacher one-on-one, in great detail.
More information about studies can be found at Oodi from Game Design and Production and New Media curricula as well as from the book Degree Requirements 2009-2011. I am very excited: the new game MA students starts at next Monday at our department. At spring we selected five students from 24 applicants. In addition, we will have five students from the School of Technology taking part to the selected courses. I have been busy to take care of various things such as booking teachers, designing courses and so. And I have still loads of things to do, but things start to take shape. Our first game specific course is Game Design. The course will start with workshop focusing to gameplay design. Petri Ikonen from Digital Chocolate and I will be teaching. After that the course continues with lectures. Mikko Rautalahti (Remedy) will talk about narrative design, Petri Ikonen about level design for casual games, Jussi Holopainen (NRC, co-author of the book Patterns in Game Design) about game design & design patterns. I will probably talk about some general thing about game design and possibly about character-driven game design (if I am not able to get a level designer to talk about level design from some other angle than Petri Ikonen). We continue with the Game Analysis and Game Project at the autumn (Game Projects ends at the end of spring). At the spring we have planned lectures about role-playing games by Markus Montola and Jaakko Stenros (if we have money for this) that would be a part of the course Understanding Games (an exam or lectures about role-playing and exam). The spring ends with workshop Gameplay Evaluation. The course Game Analysis consist of small analysis exercises in which we look at board and classic arcade games using different conceptual (and theoretical) tools and try to understand how the games work. In addition, participants write an essay about a game using these tools introduced during the course. The materials of this course include chapter 4 from Järvinen (2008) Games without Frontiers. I have earlier used also chapter about cybernetic system from Salen & Zimmerman’s Rules of Play and my essay Goals, Affects, and Empathy, but I might choose some other texts instead. The exam Understanding Games include the book Tavinor (2009) The Art of Video Games. 2009 and two books from the following list (the lectures on rpgs can be taken instead of a book): The second year continues with the game courses Advanced Topics in Game Design, Game Research Project, and MA Thesis Seminar as well as with MA Thesis. In parallel within these two years, there will be obligatory courses of MA in new Media. These courses include Understanding Media and Design (5 ECTS), New Media Exam (1 ECTS), Software Studies for Media Designers (3 ECTS), Media Art and Culture (3 ECTS) as well as possibility to take other new media courses or complement the studies at the department of Media Technology etc |
