Classroom

Monday

• Presentations due:  N/A.
• Please watch the video below, where I talk about how to use Tabletop Simulator to test out your game
• Here is the Tabletop Simulator Wiki
• Here is the Tabletop Simulator Knowledge base
• Please look at this  article about digital board games to play while self-isolating
• Check out this article about a board game remix kit
• Work on your game graphics and rules so you can upload them to the gamecrafter website
• If you have questions or comments, you can put them in the website forum

Wednesday

• Please watch the video below
• Link to game booklet
• Presentations due: Blake, Caleb, Michael, Tim. Please put your presentations in your folder
• Presentations. Please take a look and let these folks know what you think in the website forum:
• I answered some student questions in the forum. See the post here
• Here’s an article about playing board games online that mentions Tabletop Simulator
• Check out this article about new board game awards in America
• See these board games adapted for the pandemic
• Want to stream your video gameplay, check out the new (and free) OBS software
• Look at some of the best games of 2020

Assignments

• Get a Tabletop Simulator account and test out your game in that environment
• Work on your game rule book and consider using something like the template I mention in the video above
• Get your game graphics finished and uploaded to the Gamecrafter website by  April 8th

Classroom

Monday

• Presentation:  Brayan
• Show Batman game (show pics on screen and pass game around)
• Check out this article about the creator of Death Stranding
• Article about an ingenious game
• Discuss how the play testing went. What can we do to improve it?
• Talk about splitting your team up into artists and uploaders (aesthetics) who deal with the gamecrafter website, and those who work on the mechanics and dynamics of the game
• Work with your team to get your game ready for more play testing on  Wednesday

Wednesday

• Presentation: Byron
• Article: the first female game design programmer
• Play test games – 30 minutes for each game

Assignments

• Work with team on your game. Deadline is end of March

Classroom

Monday

• Presentation:  Ben Boydell
• Remember: we’ll play test your games on Wednesday
• Review the end of chapter one in the book
• Review the first part of chapter two
• Work with your team to get your game ready for Wednesday

Wednesday

• Presentation: Brayan
• Check out this article about the creator of Death Stranding
• Play test games

Assignments

• Work with team on your game

Classroom

Monday

• 1st Quarter Grades have been posted in D2L. This is for your work on the quiz
• Your games will need to be uploaded and ready to order in one month (at end of March)
• Your games will be displayed to the public and playable at the Digital Arts Expo and Showcase at the end of the semester
• Presentation: Brock
• Snag-a-normie article
• Exergaming article
• Discuss the Gamecrafter’s Crowd Sale Creator
• A resource for play testing your games online: https://playtest-coop.com/
• Game lecture: how to create an elevator pitch
• For Wednesday – have someone on your team create an elevator pitch for your game, using the template above

Wednesday

• Presentation: Aiden
• Share your team’s elevator pitches
• Review the end of chapter one in the book
• Review the first part of chapter two
• Discuss these game design concepts:
  • Ludology – the study of game rules and mechanisms
  • Narratology – the study of player story lines and experiences
  • Marc LeBlanc, a game developer, wrote about the “Eight Kinds of Fun,” which are listed on Wikipedia as:
    1. Sensation: Game as sense-pleasure. Games that evoke emotion in the player, be it through sound, visuals, controller rumble or physical effort. Examples: Dead Space, Dance Dance Revolution, Candy Crush Saga
    2. Fantasy: Game as make-believe. Game as a mean to take the player to another world, some call it escapism. Examples: Final Fantasy, Nier: Automata, The Legend of Zelda
    3. Narrative: Game as drama. Game as a mean to tell a story or narrative to the player. Examples: The Walking Dead, Persona 3, Dear Esther
    4. Challenge: Game as obstacle course. Game that provide the player(s) with highly competitive value or with increasingly difficult challenges. Examples: Dark Souls, Tetris, X-COM
    5. Fellowship: Game as social framework. Games that have social interactions as its core or as a big feature.^[3] Examples: Mario Kart, Destiny, World of Warcraft
    6. Discovery: Game as uncharted territory. Games in which the player explores the world he/she finds himself/herself in. Examples: Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Assassin’s Creed
    7. Expression: Game as self-discovery. Games that allow for self-expression from the player through gameplay. Examples: Minecraft, Garry’s Mod, Roblox
    8. Submission: Game as pastime. Games that have “farming” or “grinding” as a core element. Examples: FarmVille, Hyperdimension Neptunia, Disgaea

    A game does not need to have only one of the above, nor all of them. Just because these are different kinds of fun does not mean that everyone finds all eight of these things fun at all. Not only do different games provide different combinations and relative quantities of the various kinds of fun, but different players find different combinations more or less fun than others.^[4]

• How many kinds of fun are in your game?
• Work with your team on developing a playable prototype for your game. We’ll start play testing your game with other teams soon. Get someone from your team to start working on the following:
  • Game box
  • Game board
  • Cards
  • Rule book
  • Elevator pitch for your game
  • Tokens, dice, etc. – what will be ordered and how does it fit your budget ($45)?

Assignments

• Work with team on your game

Classroom

Monday

• Discuss this post about color blindness and board games
  • Look at these examples of colorblindness (created with Color Oracle)
    

    

    

    

    

    

  • Color blindness simulator
    https://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/
  • Color oracle – use on your designs – free software download

    https://colororacle.org/
• Review information for game design quiz, which will be Wednesday
  • The quiz will be over the information which is highlighted in yellow on my notes
• Discuss Gloom card game
  • Clever core theme – hurt your family (mechanic)
  • Good artwork, intriguing cards -transparent (aesthetic)
  • Players tell stories (dynamic)

Wednesday

• Presentation: Emilio
• Take game design quiz
• Snag-a-normie article
• Exergaming article
• A resource for play testing your games online: https://playtest-coop.com/
• We ran out of time today, so we’ll cover everything below next week…
• Game lecture: how to create elevator pitch
• Work with your team on developing a playable prototype for your game. We’ll start play testing your game with other teams next week. Get someone from your team to start working on the following:
  • Game box
  • Game board
  • Cards
  • Rule book
  • Create a pitch for your game using the template above
  • Develop a playable prototype that others can play
  • Any additional items needed for your game

Assignments

• Continue looking at the first chapter in the textbook (above)
• Work with team on your game

Classroom

Monday

• Guest lecturer Brandon Yongbanthom
• The game design quiz will not be this week. We will review the material before I give you the quiz
• Work with your team on developing a prototype for your game

Wednesday

• The presentation schedule has been posted here
  • Please note: don’t just show us video of you playing a video game for 10 minutes
  • Don’t just spend 10 minutes talking about your favorite game. Pick a topic, like game art, the history of games, etc. You can talk about your favorite game, along with others, in the context of your topic
• No apps for board games – will take too much time away from the game design process
• Discuss Monkey-tower game evolution
• Check out this article about ancient board games
• See this article about how to make a diverse game studio
• Sales Sheet for board games
• Work on game with your team

Assignments

• Continue looking at the first chapter in the textbook (above)
• Play some board games with friends and family. The library has a board game session from 3-5pm on Wednesdays (3rd floor every other week, in the hallway on the way to the cafeteria every other week), and you can also reserve a study room, and check out some games ,and play with your teammates anytime they are open
• Work with team on your game

Classroom

Monday

• Talk about quiz over my notes/lectures in two weeks – we will go over everything in advance
• Check out Fig
•  Plan for your team to present your game idea to the class on Thursday (upload sketches and text to your shared Google Drive folder)
• Continue lecture from my notes
• Work with your team toward the goal of create a prototype of your game in the next two weeks
• Here is the class textbook  (Challenges)

Wednesday

• Teams demo their game ideas
• A little bit more about Fig
• Demo the first 5 minutes of Component Studio from  thegamecrafter.com – you don’t have to use this. It wil be overkill for some projects
• Look at Greg’s Guide to Board Game Design
• Continue discussion from my notes
• Time to work on game with team

Assignments

• Continue looking at the first chapter in the textbook (above)
• Play some board games with friends and family. The library has a board game session from 3-5pm on Wednesdays (3rd floor), and you can also reserve a study room, and check out some games ,and play with your teammates anytime they are open
• Work with team on your game

Classroom

Monday

• Talk about monthly grading
• Pass around clear jewel boxes holding game components ordered from thegamecrafter.com
• Share gamecarafter login (user: gjloumeau@pima.edu, password pccgames) and go over how to create a game
• Look at and discuss monkey game
• Discuss game design: mechanics, aesthetics, and dynamics. Here are my notes
• Look at Greg’s Guide to Board Games
• Work with your team toward the goal of create a prototype of your game in the next two weeks
• Here is the class textbook  (Challenges)

Wednesday

• Demo Component Studio from thegamecrafter.com
• Continue discuss from my notes
• Continue to ook at Greg’s Guide to Board Games
• On your own time, check out this article
• And this article
• Time to work on game with team – work towards presenting your idea to the class next week (upload sketches and text to your shared Google Drive folder)

Assignments

•  Check out this article
• Look at this article about the history of board games
• Start looking at the first chapter in the textbook (above)
• Assignment- work with team to start developing an idea and present the concept to the class next week

Classroom

• Introductions
• Syllabus
• Make a Google Drive folder called “gam101 your name” and share it with me: my e-mail address is gjloumeau@pima.edu
• Discuss presentations
• How to Get an Adobe ID
• Discuss computer commons on second floor
• Some board games are available in the library for reference. Feel free to bring any unused board games in so we can build a library ourselves
• Show board games made by the Gamecrafter
• Form five teams, with each team having a diverse makeup (some people who are good at graphics, ideas, organization, etc.). Talk about the possible app connection. Each team should make a Discord account and invite a student from my app design class

Assignments

•  Check out this article and this one
• Look at this article about the history of board games
• Assignment– work with team to start developing an idea and present the concept to the class next week

Classroom

1. Discuss student game concepts: what is the name of your team? How did communications go this week? Does it make sense to have a team captain? If so, who will it be?
2. Dynamics, Mechanics, Aesthetics definitions. Here are my notes
3. Take a look at a sample Game Design Document
4. The Pima game club is called the Game Development Guild and their e-mail address is gamdevguild@gmail.com. They meet in this classroom. Contact them for meeting times
5. Download and read Chapter 1: The Basics in textbook (Challenges). We’ll discuss it next week
6. Time to work with team on board game

Assignments

• Read chapter 1 in textbook (Challenges link above)
• Work on your board game as a team
• Check out this article
• And read this article