Video Game Design and Critique

Catalog description

Surveys history, art, technology, narrative, ethics, and design of interactive computer games. Games as systems of rules, games of emergence and progression, state machines. Flow, systems of pleasure, goals, rewards, reinforcement schedules, fictional and narrative elements of game worlds. Responses to immersive & interactive media; experience of gamified systems in diverse contexts. Social, artistic, and cultural effects of games: impact, harm, benefits. Team design and development of game-design storyboards and stand-alone games. Interplay between narrative, graphics, rule systems, and artificial intelligence in the creation of interactive games. Programming experience not required.