Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Designing an Interactive Final Exam, Part 2

The other half of an interactive final is, of course, the content. So, this one goes out to all the developers and teachers out there:

Topics in the course include:
  • business models in the industry
  • the process of making games
  • history of the industry (including its roots in board games)
  • current events
  • emerging fields (game journalism, serious games, etc.)
  • academic/industry relations.
I'll be putting together a list of questions I can ask on these topics, and find ways to work it in to a discussion on some particular game or other. For example, I can show a game that didn't do well in the marketplace and ask about WHY it didn't do well (maybe it had poor graphics for its time, or maybe it was overshadowed by a major event, or maybe it had poor marketing, or maybe the development team didn't do its job properly). In some cases, actually playing the game can provide some clues here, and I'll choose my examples carefully.

If you have any ideas for good questions to ask (and games to go with them), or good games for discussion (because they have a lot of unique properties), send them to:
ai864 "at" yahoo "dot" com

Please don't post them here in the comments. I don't know if any of my students read this or not, but I'd hate to give an unfair advantage to those who know how to use google :-)

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