Game Balance Concepts

So, for those of you who recall, I ran a free online class last summer. (If you missed it, all of the content is still there, and you can feel free to look through it at your own pace.)

Well, I'm doing it again this summer. Game Balance Concepts is a ten-week course that will go in depth in the topic of game balance.

Why do this again? Because I'm clearly insane. Also, I'm hoping to actually get paid for my time. But mostly, it's because game balance has always been an interest of mine, and it's the kind of niche class that I would never be able to teach (or even propose as a Special Topics course) as an adjunct. So, this is the best method I have of creating an experimental course with original content, just to see what happens.

At any rate, the class starts on July 5, so come and join me.

Game Design Concepts: an Experiment

For those of you who I met at GDC and found their way here, welcome!

One thing I talked to a lot of people about is an experiment I'm doing this Summer, called "Game Design Concepts."

This is a free online class that I'm going to teach. It is not affiliated with any college or university, and not for credit. It will be taught through a combination of blog, email and wiki. It contains all of the information (and then some) in one of the game design classes that I normally teach in a classroom in exchange for tuition money. But I'm releasing it for free this Summer.

The subject of the course is, as you might expect, game design. The intended audience is:

• Students who are interested in game design, and either are at a school that doesn't teach it well or doesn't teach it at all (or maybe you just want a second opinion).


• Teachers, especially those who teach game design. You can compare my material with that of your own class. Maybe you'll find some useful resources that you didn't know about, and maybe you'll be able to offer me some hints in return.


• Game developers who aren't designers. In a lot of companies, game design is still considered something of a "dark art" and those who aren't designers are often curious about how game design is done. In a few hours a week, this whole other field can (hopefully) be demystified.


• Game designers. Do you have an interest in contributing to education? Do you want to know what it is that the next generation of designers -- the ones who are likely to report to you in 4 to 6 years -- are being taught in the classroom? This is a way to find out, and contribute your own experience in the process.


• Anyone else with an interest in learning more about game design. For example, parents or grandparents of game designers who are curious about what these kids are doing; or hardcore gamers who want greater insight into the design decisions that make their favorite games so great.

If I've got your attention and interest, the blog is at gamedesignconcepts.wordpress.com and all updates (including instructions to register) will be posted there.

Blogging on Applied Game Design

In addition to this blog, Brenda has given me the ability to post on the Applied Game Design blog, so I will occasionally make posts over there about the theory and practice of game design.

Why not just post here? I want this blog to remain a resource for students and educators about teaching game design, and my own rantings on how to actually make better games are best done elsewhere.

Any post over there by 'ai864' is me. I've already made my first post.

I will still be writing here about teaching game design, of course.

Updated Labels

As long as I'm on a blog-housekeeping kick, I've just bitten the bullet and added labels to all old posts, so if there's a particular post of interest you should hopefully be able to find similar posts this way. Enjoy!

I have a feed

Several people have asked me in the past if I have some kind of newsfeed for this blog. I had no idea. It's kind of like when someone asks you for your phone number, and you can't remember because you never call yourself.

Brenda kindly pointed out to me that I do indeed have one, and it's here: http://teachingdesign.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

So, for anyone wondering how to subscribe, there you are.

New Blog on Game Design Textbooks

Game educator Malcolm Ryan has recently started a blog about books that are useful for game designers. He is planning to review one book per week until his bookshelf runs empty. So, it's no longer just me doing this, which is great because the more critics we have, the better (given how many horrible books there are out there).

So, let's all give Malcolm a warm welcome.

Welcome, newcomers

It seems I met about a billion people this year at GDC, and I'm sure at least a few of you have found this blog by following the URL on my business card (if only out of morbid curiosity).

Some of the more popular areas of this blog (based on emails I've received):

• My proposed game design curriculum
• Reviews for textbooks on game design
• A series of articles on the differences between industry and academia (I'll retrofit with a "Culture Shock" tag at some later point)
• A two-part description of an interactive final exam
• A list of analogies to explain the field of game design
• A two-part article on what all teachers should know about game design

Or, just start from the beginning and read forward, and I apologize in advance if doing so makes your productivity drop for a few days.

New Teaching/Design Blog

Another one joins the field.

Brenda Brathwaite, a former co-worker who headed from industry to teaching about half a year before I did, just started a blog about her adventures in the strange land of academia:

bbrathwaite.wordpress.com

Welcome to the blogosphere, Brenda!

The Field Widens

I recently found that there are now two other blogs about teaching game design:

Boardgame designer and professor Lou Pulsipher has a new blog at http://teachgamedesign.blogspot.com/,

and game programmer Mark Doughty apparently created a blog at http://teachinggamedesign.blogspot.com/ (although this one is currently inactive).

I'd like to welcome these new players to the field. (I say "new" somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as Lou at least has been teaching far longer than I have.) I originally started this blog because there were no other resources for teaching game design on the Web; it looks like pretty soon there will be!

Welcome, new visitors

I've met a lot of new people at GDC already. The two-day workshop on education was an absolute blast, and I enjoyed meeting so many people struggling with the same challenges that I did. This is exactly the spirit in which GDC itself was originally founded -- we're all isolated from each other, forced to reinvent each other's wheels, so let's just get together and share our knowledge so that we can all benefit.

If you're new:

Most of my posts are not time-sensitive, so feel free to browse the archives (and even comment on them). A logical place to start would be my original welcome message, followed by my series of posts on building a game design curriculum.

For those of you looking for the notes from today's talks, the notes from the undergraduate game design session is here (thanks, Beth). The notes from my five-minute case study aren't online in the Education SIG blog right now, but my final exam rules are posted here, and my after-the-fact comments on the final exam are here.

Updates

Since I appear to have some frequent readers now, just a note that I plan to be updating this blog once every two to four days, as I have been so far.

So, if you stop by every day, that's great, but I don't want you to be disappointed. Dropping in once or twice a week should be plenty.

Purpose of this Blog

There are precious few resources on the Web for professional game designers. There are even fewer resources for students who want to become game designers some day. There are no resources at all, as far as I could tell, for those who wish to teach game design in a classroom. So, I'm creating one.

This blog will live at the convergence of game design, instructional design and academia. I am writing for you if you are a:

• Game industry professional who is curious about what it would be like to teach
• Game design student who wants to see what goes on behind the scenes of your classes
• Teacher or Professor who is teaching game design, or is curious about how to apply game design skills to improve your classee in an entirely different field

As long as I'm talking about what this blog is, I should also mention what it isn't:

It is not about game studies. Game studies is a wonderful field dedicated to studying the relationship between games and culture, which I am not a part of. I deal with game design: the art and science of making games that are fun.

It is not about getting a job in the game industry. There are already many great sites that talk about "breaking in". I'm a teacher, not an agent.

And for anyone taking my courses, it is not about sucking up for a better grade. :-)

If you're still interested, sit back and make yourself at home. Maybe we can learn something together.