"Ludology: Game Design and Theory of Play" Syllabus

Course Description

Johan Huizinga starts his cultural history masterpiece Homo Ludens by pointing out that "Play is older than culture, for culture, however inadequately defined, always presupposes human society, and animals have not waited for man to teach them their playing."  Even though play is an extremely influential factor of our cultural development, it is a facet of our lives that we often fail to study.  This course evaluates how play affects us and how we can create forms of play that affect the lives of others.  Because of the meteoric rise of videogames as a medium of significant cultural importance, the study of play is especially relevant in the 21st century.  Thus, videogames will be the medium of choice for the expression of play within this class.

Assignments

(1) Write weekly texts, approximately 500 words, discussing readings and other research.

(2) Midterm project: Create a videogame level using a pre-existing engine. This is as much an exercise in level design as it is an introduction to a game engine. The engine used for this project should also be used for the final project. Some recommended engines include: Valve's Source Engine (used in Half-Life 2), Epic's Unreal Engine (Unreal and Unreal Tournament series) and Bioware's Aurora Engine (Neverwinter Nights).

(3) Final project: Using a videogame engine, create something that goes beyond fun. Hopefully, the final product will be fun, but the focus for this project is to create something meaningful. Be sure, however, to make this project something that can be played with- the interactive capabilities of video games should not be ignored.

Syllabus

Week 1, Feb 7

Readings:

• Greene, Rachel. Internet Art. London: Thames and Huson, 2004. pp. 7-28 (Introduction), 92-104 (Parody, Appropriation and Remixing), 144-151 (Games), 173-188 (Voyeurism, Surveillance and Borders; Wireless; E-commerce).
• Galloway, Alex and Mark Tribe: Game Show Catalogue. North Adams, MASS MOCA, 2001. "Net Games Now,"  pp. 54-67.  (http://www.zanni.org/average.htm)

Review the following games/art projects:

• Zanni, Carlos.  Average Shoveler (http://www.zanni.org/average.htm)
• Carter, Kabir.  Listen (http://rhizome.org/commissions/listen.rhiz)
• Catanese, Paul.  Misplaced Reliquary (http://www.paulcatanese.com/misplaced/) 
• gameLab. Sissyfight 2000 (http://www.sissyfight.com/) 
• etoy. TOYWAR (http://toywar.etoy.com/)
• Schleiner, Anne-Marie (curator).  Cracking the Maze (http://switch.sjsu.edu/CrackingtheMaze/)

Week 2: Feb 14

Readings:

• Koster, Ralph. A Theory of Fun.  Arizona: Paraglyph Press, 2005.
• Schleiner, Anne-Marie. "About" page of Velvet Strike web site: http://www.opensorcery.net/velvet-strike/about.html
•  C-level, Waco Ressurection.  Articles about the game: http://waco.c-level.cc/

Review the following games/art projects:

• Bookchin, Natalie.  The Intruder (http://www.calarts.edu/~bookchin/intruder/)
• Bookchin, Natalie.  Metapet (http://www.metapet.net/)

Week 3: Feb 21

Zimmerman, Eric, Katie Salen. Rules of Play. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004. Chapter 3: Meaningful Play, Chapter 9: The Magic Circle, Chapter 14: Games as Emergent Systems, Chapter 26: Games as Narrative Play.  

Church, Doug. "Formal Abstract Design Tools": http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19990716/design_tools_01.htm

Kap, Jona Tres.  "But Is It Art?": http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/impact/art.html

Week 4: Mar 1

Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955.  Foreword; pp. 1-104. 

Garrelts, Nathan.  "Will Master Chief Ever Frag Moby Dick?": http://www.igda.org/columns/ivorytower/ivory_Dec04.php

Week 5: Mar 8

All of this week's readings are taken from the following article on New Game Journalism: Stuart, Keith.  "Ten unmissable examples of New Game Journalism": http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/game_culture/2005/03/ten_unmissable_examples_of_new_games_journalism.html

always_black. "Bow, Nigger": http://www.alwaysblack.com/blackbox/bownigger.html

always_black, "Possessing Barbie": http://www.juliandibbell.com/texts/bungle.html

Dibbell, Julian.  "A Rape in Cyber Space (Or TINYSOCIETY, and how to make one)": http://www.juliandibbell.com/texts/bungle.html

Rogers, Tim. "dreaming in an ampty room (in defense of Metal Gear Solid 2)": http://www.insertcredit.com/features/dreaming2/

Chick, Tom. "Saving Private Donny": http://www.quartertothree.com/inhouse/columns/82/

Gillen, Kieron. "ZangbandTK- Confessions of a Dungeon-Hack": http://www.alwaysblack.com/blackout/zangband.html

Nightfreeze. "The Great Scam": http://static.circa1984.com/the-big-scam.html

Anonymous. "Prince of Persia: Sands of Time": http://www.edge-online.co.uk/archives/2005/02/prince_of_persi.php

Rossignol, Jim. "Going Planetside": http://rossignol.cream.org/?p=13

Curran, Ste. "Red Eye #114: http://www.thetriforce.com/ste/?p=7

GameGirlAdvance, "Sex in Games: Rez+Vibrator": http://www.gamegirladvance.com/archives/2002/10/26/sex_in_games_rezvibrator.html

Week 6: Mar 22

Stephenson, Neal.  Snow Crash. New York: Bantam Books, 1992. 

Week 7: Mar 28

Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955.  pp. 105-213.

Week 8: Apr 4: Final Project Due

Week 9: Apr 11: Chris Crawford on Game Design

Week 10: Apr 18: Chris Crawford on Game Design

Week 11: Apr 25: Final Project work

 Week 12: May 3: Final Project Due