Culture Shock: Iterative Design is not Iterative Design

When designing a game, most people at least give lip service to the concept of iteration: that is, no one gets it right on the first try, EVER, so build some time into your schedule to make major changes that you'll find along the way. It's the game developer version of the saying from engineering, "build one to throw away". I'm sure other fields have their own jargon for essentially the same thing.

Of course, with games (especially for console), once you ship your game you're done. No more iteration for you! If you're lucky and the original game is Good Enough, you might be able to improve some things in the sequel... but you can never go back and actually change the first one. "Remakes" of old games are incredibly rare.

Designing a class is just the opposite. I taught Game Industry Survey once already, and I'll teach it again two more times this year. Each time, I get to look at the results from previous classes and iterate on the design, improving weak points, tweaking the grading system, updating the content, and generally making the whole thing better. And I get to do this again and again, with fresh students each time who don't have any previous experience with earlier versions.

This property of classes encourages risk-taking. I can do something crazy like make each homework worth a hundred thousand points, and if it doesn't work then I can just apologize to the current class and change it next time around. It's quite a different environment from the risk-averse environment of the game industry, and the only thing that changes is that I get to redo my work after it "ships".

Recycling a course is harder than it sounds

At first glance, teaching the exact same course with the exact same material should mean an absolutely trivial amount of work (like, none at all). In practice, there are a lot of details that add up. It's still nowhere near the amount of work to create a course from scratch, but neither is it zero. Tasks include:

• Revising the syllabus. The course meets at different dates and times, assignments are due on different dates, there's a new call number, and there was probably some confusion over something from the last class that needs rewriting.
• Revising all homeworks and other assignments. I suppose I could be lazy and give exactly the same work, but that just gives an unfair advantage to anyone who knows someone who took the class before. I'd rather make subtle changes that keep the spirit of the work the same, while still making it impossible to copy from an earlier revision. I need to change minor details like the date that's due on each homework, anyway.
• Changing the content. It turns out that I have fewer courses in the Winter than in the Fall (due mainly to my being absent for GDC), so I have to choose what content to eliminate. This is something like choosing which of your children to shoot. I'll probably compromise by holding optional evening classes to cover the missing content, and offering extra credit to anyone who shows.
• With less "required" content, that means I have to revise the final exam to remove any questions about material that won't be covered in class.
• In general, going over all of my handwritten notes from Fall, and incorporating all the stuff I learned about what to do (and what not to do) into my written notes.
• And naturally, since the game industry keeps changing, I need to look over all the content and remove or modify anything that's no longer current.

I had no idea recycling involved so many details, until I sat down to actually do it...

Recycling a course is harder than it sounds

At first glance, teaching the exact same course with the exact same material should mean an absolutely trivial amount of work (like, none at all). In practice, there are a lot of details that add up. It's still nowhere near the amount of work to create a course from scratch, but neither is it zero. Tasks include:

• Revising the syllabus. The course meets at different dates and times, assignments are due on different dates, there's a new call number, and there was probably some confusion over something from the last class that needs rewriting.
• Revising all homeworks and other assignments. I suppose I could be lazy and give exactly the same work, but that just gives an unfair advantage to anyone who knows someone who took the class before. I'd rather make subtle changes that keep the spirit of the work the same, while still making it impossible to copy from an earlier revision. I need to change minor details like the date that's due on each homework, anyway.
• Changing the content. It turns out that I have fewer courses in the Winter than in the Fall (due mainly to my being absent for GDC), so I have to choose what content to eliminate. This is something like choosing which of your children to shoot. I'll probably compromise by holding optional evening classes to cover the missing content, and offering extra credit to anyone who shows.
• With less "required" content, that means I have to revise the final exam to remove any questions about material that won't be covered in class.
• In general, going over all of my handwritten notes from Fall, and incorporating all the stuff I learned about what to do (and what not to do) into my written notes.
• And naturally, since the game industry keeps changing, I need to look over all the content and remove or modify anything that's no longer current.

I had no idea recycling involved so many details, until I sat down to actually do it...

Winter Break is a Hoax

With only one week between the Winter and Spring quarters, I effectively need to prepare for all of my Winter and Spring classes right now. This involves two brand-new classes, plus the administrative details of the classes I'm repeating (like changing the dates on the syllabus). I also have some short-term industry contract work, and some game-related R&D that I'm supposed to be doing at home.

So far, I've been about as busy as I was during Fall.

I always thought that whole "22 weeks of paid vacation per year" thing sounded too good to be true...

Fast Group Board/Card Games

One of my courses this Winter will focus on the rapid design of game concepts. While most of the games will be digital in nature, I think it's important to have at least some grounding in physical card and board games, as the boardgame industry has permanent ties to the video games (for several reasons).

One project I'd like to do will involve eurogames, and in particular I'd like to demonstrate a number of these games in class. Ideal games can be played with a large number of people (6+ "players", with the ability for several people to play as a single team), have simple rules that can be explained in a minute or two, have a total playing time of 15-30 minutes or less (although for games with multiple rounds, 15 minutes or less per round is acceptable), and can be played without specialized components (in case I don't actually own it in my collection and can't find a copy in time). Oh, and it should be fun, at least for the first few times.

So far I've come up with 6 Nimmt, Diamant, Circus Flohcati and Tutankhamen. If anyone has other suggestions, please post a comment here. Thanks!