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- Reading Summaries - because sometimes other things seem oh so much more important than doing the assigned reading - Each week we have a couple of chapters or some library articles assigned. By 11am on Monday of each week I want you to email me a one page summary of the reading. Some weeks there will be specific questions to answer (and hopefully they will help you understand some of the tougher articles and give you a clue what I think is important). I get out of class at 11 and i"ll print them out to read over lunch. Don't be late. Think of these as practice writing for the exams.
- Book Review - written and class presentation - There are so many books out there on videogames - design books, history, theory, business applications, etc. We can't read them all. But we can each read one and share with the class - and we'll get the benefit. Each person will read a book related to videogames in some way and writes up a 3-5 page summary. Additionally each person will make a brief (5-7 minute) presentation to class. There will be books listed for each week - you need to pick one and be ready to present during that week. One person per book. No late presentations will be accepted (if you're not ready when your book is on the syllabus - you don't get any credit).
- Class creates videogame history timeline, annotated, graphics - each group takes a decade (1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000) and creates an interdisciplinary social history of videogames during that decade (bring in political, social, technological, etc. trends), identify graphics, videos, key games, key technology. We will put these on the web. They need to be written as an academic research paper with bibliography and in text citations. This is the big project for the first half of the semester. I'd like to put it togheter as something more than just a series of papers - that would be cool but kind of normal. It would be interesting to organize 3 dimensionally - we have decades, we have big topics (tech, politics, economy, competition, etc.) Write the papers first, then we'll be creative. I'm thinking papers due Friday of Week 7 (right before spring break - and no we can't make it due after spring break because they have to get graded for midterm grades)
- Midterm - in class - essays - I'm thinking Friday of Week 6.
- Game analysis - we're studying videogames so you should play some games. I have a box full of game demos you can borrow. The videogame club meets weekly. Some of you brought your game consoles or PC games to school. There is a game console over in the rec room of the student center. There are games on the web. We'll play some in class. And probably some of your friends have consoles/PC games. In groups of 3, I want you to gain some indepth expeirence with games and with analyzing them in terms of genre and game play. I want you to play games in 3 different genres (and play them long enough to actually have something interesting to say, not just watch the start up screen). Use your examples to answer these questions - are industry standard genre categories still applicable? Using your game as an example, how would you describe each genre (bring in specifics from your game). I'm thinking Friday of week 11.
- Lead class discussion - This is a seminar - you're supposed to discuss and analyze and synthesize and mash up and (insert your favorite verb here as long as it isn't forget). I want people to be responsible for organizing and leading discussion most Fridays (and some Wednesdays).
- Social Gaming project - let's figure out something we can do to research social aspects of game playing. I'm thinking some public event with presentations, game playing, hopefully some data collection and video footage. Get out your thinking caps. This will be the big project for the 2nd half of the class. Needs to be before final exam week.
- Game Design project -you will be testing game prototypes from an experimental course being co-taught by TVR and Computer Science. You will write up an evaluation of one of the games for the creators.
- Final Exam
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