Overview
- Course Title
- Honors Colloquium on Serious Game Design
- Section
- 5
- Prerequisites
- Junior standing in the Honors College
- Meetings
- Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30–1:45PM
- Instructor
- Paul Gestwicki, Ph.D.
- Office Hours
- See instructor Web site
A serious game is a game that is intended to have an impact beyond the play experience. While there are many kinds of serious game, the most common is educational games. In this colloquium, we will study the relationships between games, fun, and learning in collaboration with Minnetrista, focusing on how interactive geolocative narrative games can enhance visitor's experiences about local history, culture, architecture, and science.
As we begin our studies, our use of the word “game” is inclusive of card games, board games, sports, video games, and role-playing games. We will refine this definition as we progress. In our design process, we will give preference to lightweight physical prototypes for several reasons: they are quick to construct, they are effective for testing ideas, and they are accessible to anyone. If you know how to program or wish to learn how to program in order to create digital prototypes, you are welcome, but there is no expectation that anyone has such background.
Resources
All of our readings will be from materials that are freely available online or through course reserves. We will spend several weeks reading Ian Schreiber's Game Design Concepts, which is essentially a free online book about game design. Note that when completing these readings, you are not obligated to complete the nested readings—where he links to and references additional material—but you certainly may if you wish.
We will be using Google Docs and other connected technologies to coordinate community activity. If you do not already have a Google account, you will need to create one. Using two-step verification is strongly recommended. Once you gain access to our course's shared folder during the first week of the semester, you will create an eponymous folder within, into which you will be expected to store all course documents. These folders will be shared with the class community so that we can read and learn from each others' efforts. Note that you will be expected to use the Google Docs suite for its accessibility and excellent integration of collaborative editing and commenting; do not upload Microsoft Office files.
During the semester you may incur additional expenses for reference material, prototyping supplies, and travel—likely no more than $50. Please budget accordingly.
Schedule
We will spend the first 6–7 weeks of the semester learning fundamentals of game design. Your time will be spent learning theory and gaining practice. After this, we will transition to a more production-oriented schedule, during which each student will create a significant semester project to represent their learning. For most students, this will be an original, geolocative game based on themes and educational goals shared with our immersive learning community partner, Minnetrista.
The schedule page presents a summary of the course schedule, including the schedule of readings and deliverables.
The withdraw deadline is October 25.
We will have a class meeting during the university-scheduled final exam slot, as per university policy.
Attendance and Related Policies
Your learning is commensurate to your participation, and so attendance is expected. You are responsible for your learning regardless of attendance. If you miss a class meeting, you should consult with trusted classmates to ensure you have the appropriate notes.
Meetings begin at the time scheduled, and you are expected to be ready to begin at this time; late entry is direspectful to me and your classmates.
Grading
All of my evaluations are made with respect to triage grading. Briefly, this means that any graded component can be categorized as essentially correct (3 points, or A), partially correct (2 points, or C), essentially incorrect (1 point, or D), or unattempted (0 points, or F).
You will have the opportunity each day to earn three participation points. Full credits are earned for making a clearly meaningful contribution to the activity of the day, whether it is a discussion, critiquing a work, or engagement in an active learning activity. If there is an artifact formally required for the day as laid out in the schedule, then one may earn an additional three points for that artifact. Contact the instructor in case of illness or excusable absence for alternate methods for asynchronous participation. The total of all these points will be termed your participation grade.
One of the maxims of game design is trust the process. This arises from the fact that, even following what are considered good practices, one can never guarantee the success of a design. Hence, for the production portion of the class, you will be graded primarily on following the process. This gives us all the best chance of seeing some outstanding successes during the semester. You will have several opportunities during the production portion of the semester to share a formal status report about your work; following and reporting on an appropriate process will earn you up to three points for each report, the sum of which constitutes your production grade.
You can earn up to three points during the production portion of the class by consulting with either the professor or a professional game designer about your project. This is your consulting grade.
During the semester, you may earn an achievement for activity outside the normal classroom interactions; see the achievements page for suggestions. Achievements are designed in part to give you ideas for legitimate and rewarding course activity when you feel the need to step away from the needs of the final project. Most achievements can be completed using the discussion board; you may complete at most one achievement via the discussion board per week. Each achievement can earn up to three points, and up to two achievements may be counted for course credit. These constitute your achievement grade.
You can earn up to three points for participating in the final meeting with our community partner, which will be scheduled for the last week in the semester. This includes packaging and delivering your final project to the community partner. This is your completion grade.
Your final grade will be determined as a weighted average of these various grades as given in the table below. Any modifications deemed necessary by the instructor will be clearly announced and discussed.
| Grade | Percent |
|---|---|
| Participation | 45 |
| Production | 30 |
| Consulting | 5 |
| Achievement | 10 |
| Completion | 10 |
Communication
Office Hours and Appointments
My office hours are listed on my Web site. Students who come to office hours are helped on a first-come, first-served basis; no appointment or prior contact is required. If a student wishes to make an appointment to meet outside of office hours, he or she should email the instructor the request along with several possible meeting times.
Note that during the second half of the semester, I tend to hold a lot of meetings in the lab. I usually remember to put a note on my door to this effect, but if I don't, you can look for me there.
All email communication to the instructor should be from a BSU-affiliated address. This policy ensures that senders can be correctly identified and protects your privacy. Email sent from other domains may not be answered.
You are expected to process your email at least daily.
The instructor may access email through services not affiliated with the University. Please note that such messages necessarily pass through the campus firewall in an unencrypted format, and they may be stored on servers not owned or managed by Ball State University. It is therefore advisable to restrict confidential information to office hours or appointments.
Telephone
Although my office telephone number is listed on my Web site, email and face-to-face communication are strongly preferred. I will respond to every student email I receive; I will likely not respond to telephone messages.
Miscellany
Academic Integrity
Students and faculty are bound by the Student Academic Ethics Policy of the Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities.
Intellectual Property
It behooves you to be aware of fundamentals of copyright law and the university's intellectual property policies for student-created work.
File Formats
When file submission is necessary outside of Google Drive, all files must be submitted in open file formats. Good examples include HTML, PDF, OpenDocument, and plain text. Note that Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite formats do not qualify.
Essays
Some assignments and achievements require the writing of an “essay.” I use this term in the classical sense, to describe a composition that represents an attempt to understand a complex idea. An essay needs to have a point—a theme, a thesis, a central question. This should be supported by evidence, with assumptions identified and claims justified or cited. As implied by this course's prerequisites, our essays should represent college-level writing.
An essay, properly written, should hurt a bit. If you are truly writing to understand, then you have to be challenging yourself. If you are only summarizing something you have read or previously believed, it is not an “essay” by our definition.
Writing in this way has implications for structure and form. One long rambling paragraph cannot be an essay: each paragraph should have a clear and coherent theme that supports the central argument, and you need more than one of these to support an argument worth forwarding. The fact that we are writing in a digital environment should not be overlooked: you can include images, video, sound, and hyperlinks, following the same judgement you would use to include any formal element. Even typefaces, colors, and margins are part of a digital composition. These have meaning, and because of that, you should not change them unless you are proficient in digital document design: the defaults are provided because of their generality, and they are likely appropriate for your compositions.
The Elements of Style provides an excellent refresher on how to produce good, clear writing. It is a short, affordable book in its latest release, and the earliest printings are in the public domain (see archive.org, for example).
Games at the Library
Bracken Library has a number of good games available for you to check out and critically play. You can see the Games and Gaming LibGuide for a start.
The Writing Center
Want extra feedback on your papers? The Writing Center is a community of Ball State students and faculty who value writing. Come and collaborate with one of our trained peer tutors on any project for any major. The Writing Center is a comfortable, supportive environment for writers from all communities and backgrounds. It is located in Robert Bell 291. To make an appointment, go to http://ballstate.mywconline.com.
Notice for Students with Disabilities
If you need course adaptations or accomodations because of a disability, please contact the instructor as soon as possible. Ball State's Disability Services office coordinates services for student with disabilities; documentation of a disability needs to be on file in that office before any accomodations can be provided. Disability Services can be contacted at 765-285-5293 or dsd@bsu.edu.
Statement on Diversity
Ball State University aspires to be a university that attracts and retains a diverse faculty, staff, and student body. We are committed to ensuring that all members of the community are welcome, through valuing the various experiences and worldviews represented at Ball State and among those we serve. We promote a culture of respect and civil discourse as expressed in our Beneficence Pledge and through university resources found at http://cms.bsu.edu/campuslife/multiculturalcenter.