Gregory Trefry

As game and interaction designers we create systems and choices that can either prey
upon our psychological foibles or help us avoid decision pitfalls. It is our responsibility
to understand how we decide, to consider the ethics of the systems we create and to
practice designing systems in a purposeful manner.
Game Design & The Psychology of Choice will provide interaction and game designers
with an understanding of the factors that influence behavior and decision-making by
looking at the intertwining of cognitive psychology and economics through the
development of behavioral economics. These disciplines study behavior on the
individual and group level, often revealing some of the why behind the rules of thumb
and folk wisdom that game designers come to intuitively. But understanding the why—
why we fall into decision traps; why certain tradeoffs tax our brain more than others;
why we are overconfident about our abilities; why certain decisions make us
uncomfortable—allows us to more purposefully apply our design craft, both in and out
of games. Finally, as a class, we will take what we learn about how we think and create
series of game experiences based around key cognitive science concepts.