Busy

School and work have been keeping me busy.  I severely underestimated the amount of time I'd have to devote to less-than-essential pastimes (blogging) once school ramped up.  I was proud of the posting consistency I'd built up over the past two months.  Unfortunately, currently, daily posts aren't likely.  I'm still learning a hell of a lot about games, and I want to share it all!  No worries.  I'll get to everything, it'll just trickle slower.  ... it'll just trickle slower.  What a weird thing to say.

Today, I want to write briefly about a course I'm taking this semester called Game Design as Art.  When I started college in the fall of 2009, my university had nothing to offer in terms of game design/development.  Since then, a small handful of faculty members have managed to convince whoever's in charge to offer an equally small handful of courses related to game design through the art department and game development through the computer science department.  It's not much, but I'm thankful for it.

This course will encompass theory and practice of game development and game creation as an art process. Areas of study during the course will include game design and mechanics, explorations of theory, narrative and storytelling with game paradigms, social and ethical concerns of gaming and gaming as cultural resistance.

The projects are intended to expose students to different aspects of game design. Students are expected to create four games, participate in “game testing” and in forum assignments and to meet class deadlines.

I'm not sure why the phrase "game testing" is quoted in the above course requirements.

So far, this course feels like a less intense version of Ian Schreiber's online Game Design Concepts course, which I've been slowly trekking my way through.  Our first assignment in the class was to design and build a race game.  You can read all about the assignment here.  A race game.  That sounds familiar.

I'll be writing a few posts about the race game I made for the class soon.  I'm calling my game Mine Cart Mayhem - A Race Game.  I stole the name from a Mario Party mini game.

Talking to my professor after class today, he told me that he wants to show students that they can, in fact, make games themselves.  So many people express a desire to make games, but few do.  They think the process is beyond them.  It's not.  I discovered this on my own not too long ago.

Some more news: Me and some guys have a Skype date planned with Raph Koster!  Raph has been described by some as a "legendary game designer."  I bought his book around the same time I started this blog.  I haven't read it yet.  Still, I'm fucking pumped to meet the guy!

Cheers,

Danny