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Okay, this is too fun not to post: a Chinese version of Game Design Workshop, or "游戏设计工作坊" Someday, maybe my Chinese will be advanced enough to actually read it, but I'm not holding my breath. (Good thing I already know what it says.)
For those of you still waiting for your books, remember to get caught with this week's reading:
--Forward by Frank Lantz
--Essay on the Lord of the Rings board game design process by Reiner Knizia
--Chapters 6, 7 and 9
For next week, everyone please read:
--Chapters 11, 12 and 13
--Ironclad: commissioned game + essay by Frank Lantz
For those interested in the Powerpoints, I went ahead and uploaded them for you. (They are big, so be warned.)
Week 1
Week 2
Assignment:
Using the core mechanics (i.e. player negotiation) of Settlers as a starting point, come up with a new game and create a working physical prototype.
--You must change the basic premise.
--You may add or change any other elements as well (board, objectives, resources, etc.)
--You must state a specific design goal.
--Your game must be a much shorter experience than Settlers: It should take approximately 15-20 minutes to play.
--I mentioned a maximum of 4 players in class, but we can work with a larger number of players as long as the game can be played with the number of people we have available in class and resolves in 15-20 minutes.
Schedule
--During weeks 3-4 we will play test and give feedback on your games.
--Teams will then re-design based on that feedback.
--In the final week of the games module, teams will bring back their revised games for a final play test.
Schedule for weeks 3-4 is:
September 7, 3:30-5:30PM @ the IML
-- Scott & Mike S.
-- Jorge & Mike B.
-- Garrett & Matt
September 12th, regular class time
-- Jesse
-- Paul & Ken
-- Marc & Anthony
Assignment:
-- Choose a game from the list to play and analyze – preferably one you haven’t played before.
-- Keep a “play journal” of your experience with the game.
-- Focus on choices, strategies, pleasures and other emotions that the game evokes.
--Analyze your personal reading in such a way as to understand why these moments work or don’t work to provide a successful play experience.
Format, etc.:
--7-8 pages double-spaced
--Clear, well-written, original thoughts
--Insight into your player experience
--Can include screenshots or other visualization aids.
--Please contextualize your writing so that it does not require readers to be intimately familiar with the game.
--If you want to play a game that is not on the list, please clear it with me first.
Due: September 19th
It can be cool sometimes when you hurt yourself doing something exciting, daring or just unusual -- like skydiving or rockclimbing. One time my friend Sonja broke her wrist falling out of a dive bar in the Village. Seriously -- one minute in the bar, next minute lying on the ground outside a badly marked emergency door. Painful, but it made a great story later.
The only other time I've broken a bone, it was my ankle while skateboarding. The story of that jump -- which was really never as high or far as I made it sound later -- got me through a bijillion sympathetic inquiries from old ladies shopping at the bookstore where I worked that summer. "Well, you should have seen it ..."
So you can imagine my disappointment at the ludicrously mundane way I managed to break these fingers -- tripping over the exit gate in Lot P. But I've been thinking ... perhaps I could tell people it was a Halo-related injury instead? Yeah, that sounds good: I broke them playing rocket launchers on Foundation ... took a nasty fall off one of the air chutes, you should have seen my Master Chief bounce! Or maybe it was snipers in Burial Grounds ... hmmm.
Many thanks to everybody for the super nice emails and IM's -- now that you know the real story, I just want to caution you all to watch your step in those virtual parking lots!!
A friend turned me on to this great Internet radio station, and even though I'd like to keep my perfect record of never posting to my own blog, it is just so much fun that I had to let you all know about it: