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Big Games

Greg Trefry
gtrefry@iamtheeconomy.com
646-644-1995
Office Hours: Friday after class, 6-6:30 PM or by appointment
URL: http://itp.nyu.edu/varwiki/Syllabus/BigGames-S12

Class Description

What happens to games when they escape the boundaries of our tabletops and desktops and TV screens and living rooms? From massively multiplayer online games to networked objects that turn the city into a gigantic game grid, new forms of super-sized gaming are expanding at an alarming rate and opening up vast new spaces in which to play. Whether these games are measured in terms of number of players, geographical dimensions, or temporal scope, they represent a new trend in which the ‘little world” created by a game threatens to swallow up the "real world" in which it is situated. This class is a hands-on workshop focused on the particular design problems of large-scale games. In this class students: develop a foundation of basic game design understanding from which to approach the specific issues particular to big games; analyze existing digital and non-digital large-scale games, taking them apart to understand how they work; as interactive systems; and work on a series of design exercises that explore the social, technological, and creative possibilities of large-scale games.

The class will be broken into three sections: People, Time and Space. The first section People will focus on games that bring together large numbers of players into one game. The second section Time will focus on games that stretch over long periods of time and begin to integrate with our everyday lives. The Space section will examine ways in which games can utilize specific spaces and integrate with the world around us. For the final we will bring all of these ideas together to create games that challenge established notions of gameplay.

Assignments

• Game Presentation on a Big Game
  • 7 minute in class presentation
  • Slides and materials
• People Game: a game for a large number of people
  • Full-written rules
• Time Game: a game that spans a long of time
  • Full-written rules
• Space Game: a game about a location
  • Full-written rules
• Final Team Project
  • Two page pitch document for the project
  • Full-written rules
  • Art materials

Readings

We will be reading a number of different articles and chapters from different books. I will hand out the readings each week in class along with exercises. Expectations

• Attend the class and talk – For every two absences your grade will be lowered one letter grade
• Do all of the reading
• Turn in all assignments on time and complete. For each week your project is late you lose one letter grade.

Grading

15% In-class discussion and weekly blog comments
10% Game Presentation
15% People Game
15% Time Game
15% Space Game
30% Final Project

Class Schedule

January 27 / Class Intro

In Class

• What are Big Games
• What do people think they are
• My expectations for the class

February 3 / Game Design Basics

Readings

• Marc LeBlanc, MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research, http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/pubs/MDA.pdf
• Tracy Fullerton, Game Design Workshop, Chapter 3, pages 49-81, http://dl.dropbox.com/u/513298/GDW_Reading.pdf

In Class

• Play Poker
• Play Mafia

February 10 / The Many Theories of Fun

Readings

• Start playing World of Warcraft
• Linda Hughes, “Beyond the rules of the game, Why Are Rooie Rules Nice?,” Game Design Reader, page 504-517, http://dl.dropbox.com/u/513298/rooie_rules.pdf
• Raph Koster, A Theory of Fun, Chapters 2-3, pages 12-47, http://dl.dropbox.com/u/513298/ATheoryofFun.pdf
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s TED talk on flow, http://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html

February 17 / People Game Due

Readings

• Richard Bartle, “Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players who suit MUDs,” http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm

In Class

• We will play each team’s People Game

February 24 / All the Time

Readings

• Play Words with Friends, Zynga, http://www.wordswithfriends.com/
• Play CityVille, http://apps.facebook.com/cityville/
• Byron Reeves & J. Leighton Read, Total Engagement, http://dl.dropbox.com/u/513298/TotalEngagement_Ch3.pdf

In Class

• Hand out water guns to play Assassins over the next week

March 2 / Role-Playing

Readings

• Waskul, Dennis; Lust, Matt (2004). “Role-Playing and Playing Roles: The Person, Player, and Persona in Fantasy Role-Playing”, http://www.colorado.edu/ibs/pb/thornberry/socy5031/pdfs/waskul_lust_role_playing.pdf

In Class

• Play The Pool

March 9 / Time Game Due

In Class

• Teams will introduce players to their game.
• Each game will be played over the following week

March 23 / Location

Readings

• History of Grand Central, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Central_Terminal
• Henry Jenkins, “Game Design as Narrative Architecture,” http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/games&narrative.html

In Class

• We will all meet at Grand Central by the clock (If weather is nice, we may change to High Line)

March 30 / Sports

Readings

• Michael Lewis, Coach Leach Goes Deep, Very Deep, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/magazine/04coach.html
• Dave Hickey, Air Guitar, “The Heresy of Zone Defense,” pages 155-162, http://www.eludication.org/maingraphics/files/hickey.pdf

In Class

• Play Touch Football

April 6 / Space Game Due

In Class

• We will play each team’s Space Game

April 13 / Alternate Realities

Readings

• Jane McGonigal, “This Is Not a Game: Immersive Aesthetics & Collective Play,” http://www.seanstewart.org/beast/mcgonigal/notagame/paper.pdf (if for some reason the link doesn’t work, Google the paper title. You’ll find it)
• Montola & Waern , “Ethical and Practical Look at Unaware Game Participation,” 2006, http://dl.dropbox.com/u/513298/mediaterra_montola_waern.pdf

In Class

• Play Capture the Flag

April 20 / Managing Big Projects

Readings

• Ken Birdwell, “The Cabal: Valve’s Design Process for Creating Half-Life,” http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19991210/birdwell_01.htm
• Rory McGuire, “Paper Burns: Game Design with Agile Methodologies,” http://gamasutra.com/features/20060628/mcguire_01.shtml

April 27/ Playtest Finals

In Class

• We will playtest each team's game

May 4 / Finals Due

In Class

• We will play each team's Final Game