Game Design for Social Good

Catalog description

(formerly NMD 2560) This course teaches students how to use game design elements to communicate and persuade players to make changes in their lives toward greater societal good. As playful systems, games are ideal vehicles to teach varying audiences about how complex societal issues like xenophobia, human trafficking, or sexism arise, exist, or could potentially be solved. Students will choose a cause or organization to design a game on behalf of as they learn gamification techniques that cultivate intrinsic motivation. Individual students or pairs will work on a single game design project over the course of the entire semester with the end goal being a balanced, marketable game for social good. No programming skills are required for this course.