Email: jjenson@edu.yorku.ca

Office: 1023 TEL

Office hours: By appointment

All required texts are included here.

Course blog is located at: http://learning-game.blogspot.com/

September 12, 2006

Introductions

September 19, 2006

What's in a Game?: Playing by the Rules

Readings

  1. Salen, K. and Zimmerman, E. (2004). Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals (pp. ix-9). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
  2. King, L. (2002). Introduction. In L. King (Ed.), Game On: The History and Culture of Videogames (pp. 8-19). New York: Universe Publishing.
  3. Newman, J. (2004). "What is a Video Game?" in Videogames (pp. 9-28). New York: Routledge.
  4. Juul, J. (2005). Introduction. In half-real: Video games between real rules and fctional worlds (pp. 1-22). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Tasks

  1. Identify genres of video games and find a new game for each genre, including the game's website, and a review of the game.
  2. Choose a game to play for the week -- online, at home, etc. but "play" for a few hours and report back.
  3. Choose your week for book review and your book to review (I've got a bunch of books, so grazing/browsing will be encouraged!).

Activities

Getting started -- brain storming your game ideas and relevant tasks.
Thinking about how to read
A bit of a challenge

September 26 , 2006

Play: An Historical Perspective

Readings

  1. Caillois, R. The Definition of Play and the Classification of Games. In K. Salen and E. Zimmerman (Eds.) The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology (pp. 122-155). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
  2. Huizinga, J. Nature and Significance of Play as a Cultural Phenomenon. In K. Salen and E. Zimmerman (Eds.) The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology (pp. 96-120). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Tasks

Connect your own "play" of games last week to the readings this week, in other words theorize your own game playing and your own sense of "play".

Activity


Making webpages for beginners -- a quick overview, with 'expert' support.

 

October 3, 2006

(At home) Online Gaming: Dispelling the Myth of Playing Alone

Readings

  1. Gee, J. P. (2003). The Social Mind: How do you get your corpse back after you died?. What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy (pp. 169-98). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
  2. Taylor, T. L. (2006). Gaming Lifeworlds: Social Play in Persistent Environments. In Play between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture (pp. 12-65). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Task

2 hours playing a game on your own - choose one game - not ‘tetris' that is ONLINE. Write about your experience/s "playing" and contextualize using the above readings. If you feel adventurous, try out a persistent world game, like the one Abel suggested on the blog.

Submit document "online" to Jenson no later than October 10, 2006.

 

October 10, 2006

Thinking through Design

Readings

  1. Crawford, C. Common Mistakes. On Game Design (pp. 107-124). Indianapolis, Indiana: New Riders Publishing.
  2. Gee, J. P. (2003). Telling and Doing. What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy (p.113-138). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
  3. Salen, K. and Zimmerman, E. (2005). Game Design and Meaningful Play. In J. Raessens and J. Goldstein (Eds.) Handbook of Computer Game Studies (pp. 59-79). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
  4. Rollings, A. & Adams, E. Game Concepts. On Game Design (pp. 30-53). Indianapolis, Indiana: New Riders Publishing.


Task

1. Brainstorm game ideas.

2. Overview of readings.

3. Brief lecture.

Activities

1. Book presentation, Negin -- Link to ppt

2. Gaming groups assigned.

 

October 17, 2006

"Design Elements": Narrative, Character and Interactivity

Readings

  1. Scholder, A. & Zimmerman, E. (2004). Re: Play: Game Design + Game Culture (skim). New York: Eyebeam, Peter Lang.
  2. Gee, J. P. (2003). Learning and Identity: What Does it Mean to be a Half-Elf? What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy (p.51-72). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
  3. Jenkins, H. Game Design as Narrative Architecure. Online at: http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/games&narrative.html.
  4. Poole, S. (2002). Character Forming. In L. King (Ed.), Game On: The History and Culture of Videogames (pp. 76-85). New York: Universe Publishing.

Task (at home)

1. Arrive at class prepared to pitch a game idea to your group this week. Be sure you have thought through a) narrative elements and b) educational "elements" that are NOT add-ons.

(In class):

Leave tonight's class having accomplished the following and send via email to instructor: a) a tentative "take away" game idea which you will spend the week rallying around (it is ok if it doesn't work -- you can regroup) and b) a task list for everyone in your group in which you assign the week's work.

** Make sure you check out what is "out there" already and that you aren't recreating something that has already been done.

Activities

1. Guest lecturer: Nicholas Taylor, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Education

2. Getting back together: taking ‘stock', re-assigning roles, further development and ‘the pitch' to the group.

3. Thanks to Lara and Doug (from fac of ed) for supplying the following:

Dreamweaver help

Podcasting "how to"

October 24 , 2006

"Design Elements": What Makes a Game "Educational"?

Readings

  1. Gee, J. P. (2003). Situated Meaning and Learning: What should you do after you have destroyed the global conspiracy? What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy (p.73-112). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
  2. de Castell, S. and Jenson, J. (2003). Serious play. Journal of Curriculum Studies 35(6), pp. 649-665.
  3. Gingold, C. (2005). What Wario Ware Can Teach Us about game Design. (review of wario ware) for Games Studies: the international journal of computer game research.

Activities

Book reviews:
1. Diane
2. Joel

Tasks

 

October 31, 2006

A wee bit more from an educational standpoint...

Readings

  1. Gee, J. P. (2003). Introduction. What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy (1-50). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
  2. Rieber, L. P. (1996). Seriously Considering Play: Designing Interactive Learning Environments Based on the Blending of Microworlds, Simulations, and Games. Educational Technology Research and Development, 44, 2, pp. 43-58. On line at: http://www.coe.uga.edu/~lrieber/play.html

Supplemental

  1. Gordon, A. C. (1970). Origin and History of Serious Games. Games for Growth: Educational Games in the Classroom. Palo Alto, California: Science Research Associates, Incorporated.
  2. Myers, D. (2003). The phenomena of computer game play. The Nature of Computer Games: Play as Semiosis (pp. 97-111). New York: Peter Lang.
  3. http://www.gamezone.com/news/07_03_03_06_17PM.htm
  4. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.05/view.html?pg=1

Task

Think about the game you are designing and compare it to what you have been playing recently. How is your game "playful"? What is fun about it? Why would someone want to play it?

Activities

1. Book reviews:
Maya
Rovina

November 7 , 2006

Computer Gaming Culture: Other voices

Readings

  1. Salen K. & Zimmerman, E. (2004). Games as Cultural Rhetoric. In Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals (pp. 515-533).
  2. Taylor, T. L. (2006). Where the women are. In Play between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture (pp. 93-124). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Supplemental

  1. Video games article in the Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0829/p01s04-ussc.html
  2. Girl Gaming sites: http://www.gamegirladvance.com/ and http://girlstech.douglass.rutgers.edu/index.html

Task

Select any general "flash" puzzle game or other kind of game. Play it for at least 30 minutes, until you reach some level of proficiency. What did the game teach you? What did you learn? Any connection you can think of to school-based knowledge?

Activities

1. Book reviews
Bharat
Solomon

2. Culling those ideas, choosing a topic and assigning tasks. For questions to consider, click here: http://www.yorku.ca/jjenson/gradcourse/designhelp.html

November 14, 2006

Weighing In: Players' Thoughts/Arguments

Readings

  1. Hall, J. (2005). Future of games: Mobile gaming. In J. Raessens and J. Goldstein (Eds.) Handbook of Computer Game Studies (pp. 47-55). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
  2. Castronova, E. (2005). Virtual worlds: a first-hand account of market and society on the cyberian frontier. In K. Salen and E. Zimmerman (Eds.) The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology (pp.814-863). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
  3. Raessens, J. (2005). Computer Games as Participatory Media Culture. In J. Raessens and J. Goldstein (Eds.) Handbook of Computer Game Studies (pp. 373-388). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Task

Find a Flash game that you can play for 20 minutes. Is it fun to play? What makes it "fun"? Will you play it again?

Activity

1. Book presentation
Carol-Ann
Helaina
Jessy

November 21, 2006

The Finishing Touches

A whole three hours of "working together", whereever and however you might best do that.

November 28 , 2006

Final Presentation

This will include a "design document" and "walk through", the narrative elements of the game, the "educational" considerations (i.e. how and what gamers will ‘learn'), theoretical framework/s (i.e. is it ‘fun'? how? Playability? Interface?), main concerns, problems and issues, what you learned and what it would look like if you had access to all the technical skills you needed to realize your ‘vision'.

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