Game Design, October 29th, 2013

TODAY

1. Play this week: Red Dead Redemption2. Our readings for today: development and

pipelining3. Group activity: checking in, digging deeper,

working4. Literal request time5. Next class: we have options6. Coming soon…

For this week, I’d like you to play some Red Dead Redemption. As you do, I want you to think specifically about two things: immersion and culture/race/history in gaming.

This is a game that gets immersion VERY right, and it does interesting things with cultural history (sort of like GTA V, but in different ways)

Reflecting…

Last week, I had you play Grand Theft Auto V. Your responses were interesting, and mostly positive. There are some go-to topics for GTA games– violence, for example. On the next slide, though, is a question someone asked me to answer. I’ll tell you what I said, but first, I want you to answer it.

Why are there no female protagonists in the GTA

universe?

Moving on: discussion from readings.

One of the things I struggled with, in designing this class, was when to talk about stuff

like pipelining.

What I wanted you to have, as your big take-away, is a sense of how to now divide up the project so you get

your digital versions done.

The updates from last class were solid.

But with these readings done, and a few more days (and some team members

back) are there any changes?

Specifically: do we have needs? I’m going to work on

providing some guidance with Unity. But I need to

know what else I can offer.

Things people have asked for help with:1) Sprites and animation2) Examples of mobile games made with Unity

And things to cover:1) Some video game history2) Dungeons and Dragons

Do we have more?

What is coming:Next week, I’m going to give you some historical readings, and we’ll talk game history on Tuesday. On Thursday, I have a little something in mind, but I need to see if I can find the reading I want. I haven’t seen it in ages.

I am going to attempt to reserve the lab for some time over the next two weekends (I’m waiting for confirmation that no one needs the room from IMS).

What I’d like to do is a series of D&D/tabletop game sessions along with some extended work time/help sessions.

For Thursday

I will have those weekend times confirmed.

I want you to vote. I have a quirky activity in mind for Thursday, but if you’d rather have a work day, we can either come in and work or we can take the day off to work.

It’s up to all of you. As long as we all touch base on Thursday, the day ‘s activity is your choice.