MIT OPENCOURSEWARE 2011: Game Design

Game Design

As taught in: Fall 2010

Students test "Black Hat", a board game where players attempt to hack the Gibson supercomputer. See more games designed by students under Assignments.

Instructors:

Philip Tan
Jason Begy

MIT Course Number:

CMS.608 / CMS.864

Level:

Undergraduate / Graduate

 

Course Features

• Selected audio lectures
• Projects and Examples

Course Description

This course provides practical instruction in the design and analysis of non-digital games. Students cover the texts, tools, references and historical context to analyze and compare game designs across a variety of genres, including sports, game shows, games of chance, card games, schoolyard games, board games, and role–playing games. In teams, students design, develop, and thoroughly test their original games to understand the interaction and evolution of game rules. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments.

Syllabus

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session
Lab: 1 session / week, 3 hours / session

Description

This course provides practical instruction in the design and analysis of non-digital games. Students cover the texts, tools, references and historical context to analyze and compare game designs across a variety of genres, including sports, game shows , games of chance, card games, schoolyard games, board games, and role–playing games. In teams, students design, develop, and thoroughly test their original games to understand the interaction and evolution of game rules. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments.

Class Requirements and Grading

The grade of the course will be determined by preparedness for classes and participation in classes and forum discussions (25%) and three team game design projects (25% each). As long as each game project meets the basic parameters of each assignment (see "Assignments" below), grades will be based exclusively on teamwork (5%), adherance and rigorous use of the iterative design process (10%), and responsiveness to tester and faculty feedback from week to week (10%). Grades will not be determined by the quality or "fun" of your games. Because of this, deadlines are fixed and extensions will not be granted. Last-minute heroics will neither be necessary nor useful.
Because this class emphasizes participation and teamwork, and because you will have to play many games with your classmates, the faculty reserve the right to warn and dock the participation grade of any student who engages in antisocial or disruptive behavior. Regular and consistent class attendance is mandatory. You may receive a failing grade if you miss more than more than 3 classes without justification and approval from the instructors. However, this class intends to be lenient on absences due to illness and discourages working while you are sick. Meeting up with classmates in person when you may have a contagious illness is particularly discouraged!
While this class does not emphasize essay writing, game rules and text are expected to be clear, spell-checked, and demonstrate a high proficiency in written English. Full acknowledgment for all information obtained from sources outside the classroom must be clearly stated in all written work submitted. Quotations from other sources must be clearly marked as distinct from the student's own work. Students who plagiarize will receive an F in the class.

Textbook

Brathwaite, Brenda, and Ian Schreiber. Challenges for Game Designers: Non-digital Exercises for Video Game Designers. Boston, MA: Charles River Media/Course Technology, 2009. ISBN: 97815845058081.

Assignments

You are expected to write a minimum of one paragraph on the forum on the course website every week. When you are not working on a team project, you should write at least one forum post about the readings that week. Feel free to disagree or otherwise complicate the ideas in the readings. Participation in a forum thread is encouraged. "First!;" or one-line forum posts do not count.
When you are working on a team project, you must write at least one forum post a week detailing the work you and your teammates have done on the game over some part of the previous week. It could just be an account of what changed in your game that day or a collection of feedback from a playtest. Every member of the team must write a different post. Explain or demonstrate how your team is applying the iterative design process in the development of your game. Discussion between teams and members is encouraged.
All original IP for the game designs will belong to the members of the team.

 

 

Study Materials

Readings are taken from the course text and other sources, listed by session in the table below. Lab sessions also include a list of games that may be played in class. All assignments must be turned in at the beginning of class.
[CGD] = Brathwaite, Brenda, and Ian Schreiber. Challenges for Game Designers: Non-Digital Exercises for Video Game Designers. Boston, MA: Charles River Media/Course Technology, 2009. ISBN: 9781584505808.

Course calendar.

SES #	TOPICS	READINGS / Games
1	Introductions and basic terminology
2	Iterative Design	[CGD] Chapter 1 Zimmerman, Eric. "Play as Research: The Iterative Design Process." July 8, 2003. Games Euchre Uno, Mattel, 1971. Pit, Winning Moves, 1904. Fluxx, Looney Labs, 1997. Falling, Titanic Games, 1998. Chez Geek, Steve Jackson Games, 1999.
3	Where do ideas for games come from? Core dynamics, MDA, verbs	[CGD] Chapter 2 Hunicke, Robin, Marc LeBlanc, and Robert Zubek. "MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research." In Proceedings of the Challenges in Game AI Workshop at the 19th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence. San Jose, CA: AAAI Press, 2004. (PDF) Church, Doug. "Formal Abstract Design Tools." Gamasutra, July 16 1999.
4	Prototyping Guest Lecture, Sara Verrilli, Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab	Fullerton, Tracy. "Playtesting." Chapter 8 in Game Design Workshop. Boston, MA: Morgan Kaufmann, 2008. ISBN: 9780240809748.
5	Assignment 1 (Card Game) Brainstorming and Team Formation Guest Lecture, Abe Stein, Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab	Osborn, Alex F. "Creative Collaboration by Groups." Chapter 12 in Applied Imagination. New York, NY: Scribner, 1953. ISBN: 9780930222734. Games Incan Gold, Gryphon Games, 2006. Saboteur, Z-Man Games, 2004. Crunch, Exile Game Studio, 2009. Chrononauts, Looney Labs, 2000.
6	The Social Function of Games	Church, Doug. "Formal Abstract Design Tools." Gamasutra, July 16, 1999. Caillois, Roger. "The Social Function of Games." Chapter 3 in Man, Play, and Games. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780240809748.
7	Chance, Probability, Alea	[CGD] Chapter 5 Caillois, Roger. "Competition and Chance." Chapter 8 in Man, Play and Games. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780252070334.
8	Strategy, Skill, and Chance, Part 1	[CGD] Chapter 6 Poundstone, William. "Game Theory." The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology. Edited by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005. ISBN:9780262195362. Games Munchkin, Steve Jackson Games, 2001. Bohnanza, Rio Grande Games, 1997. Bang!, Da Vinci, 2002. Lunch Money, Atlas, 1996.
9	Strategy, Skill, and Chance, Part 2	[CGD] Chapters 7 and 8
10	Assignment 1 Internal Playtest
11	Adding and Subtracting Mechanics	[CGD] Chapter 14 Juul, Jesper. "The Open and The Closed: Games of Emergence and Games of Progression." In Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings. Edited by Frans Mäyrä. Tampere, Finland: Tampere University Press, 2002. Games San Juan, Rio Grande Games, 2004. Race for the Galaxy, Rio Grande Games, 2007. Dominion, Rio Grande Games, 2008. Naval Battles: World War II on the High Seas, Mayfair Games, 2004.
12	Knowing Your Players	[CGD] Chapter 11 Bartle, Richard. "Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs." April 1996.
13	Assignment 1 Playtest with GAMBIT Staff
14	Learning an Unfamiliar Genre	[CGD] Chapter 12 Games Carcassonne, Rio Grande Games, 2000. Blokus, Mattel, 2000. Flibbix, Merillian Games, 2008. Stratego, Milton Bradley, 1947. Ticket to Ride, Days of Wonder, 2004. Excape, Rio Grande Games, 1998.
15	Holiday – No Class	Leacock, Matt. "Cooperation and Engagement: What Can Board Games Teach Us?" April 30, 2008. YouTube. Accessed on March 7, 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdTVcFo2EQw
16	Assignment 1 Showcase
17	Game Bits	[CGD] Chapter 4 Norman, Donald. "The Psychopathology of Everyday Things." and "Knowing What To Do." Chapters 1 and 4 in The Design of Everyday Things. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2002. ISBN: 9780465067107. Games Thurn and Taxis, Rio Grande Games, 2006. The Settlers of Catan, Mayfair Games, 1995. Ad Astra, Fantasy Flight Games, 2009. Roll Through The Ages, Gryphon Games, 2009. Scrabble, Hasbro, 1948. Crokinole
18	Puzzles	[CGD] Chapter 3 Kim, Scott. "What is a Puzzle?"
19	Abstraction and Simulation Assignment 2 (Board Game) Team Formation	Starr, Paul. "Seductions of Sim; Policy as a Simulation Game." The American Prospect, March 21, 1994.
20	What is Intellectual Property?	[CGD] Chapter 9 Games Endeavor, Z-Man Games, 2009. Pandemic, Z-Man Games, 2008. Scotland Yard, Ravensburger, 1983. Mob City, Van der Veer Games, 2005. Container, Valley Games, Inc., 2007.
21	Games as Teaching Tools Guest Panel, Konstantin Mitgutsch, Dan Roy, Scot Osterweil, Education Arcade/Learning Games Network	[CGD] Chapters 18 and 19
22	Assignment 2 Internal Playtest
23	Creating Sequels Guest Lecture, Sara Verrilli, Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab	[CGD] Chapter 10 Games Battlestar Galactica, Fantasy Flight Games, 2008. Brass, FRED Distribution, 2007. Puerto Rico, Rio Grande Games, 2002. Thebes, Queen/Rio Grande Games, 2007. Chinatown, Alea, 1999.
24	Assignment 2 Playtest with GAMBIT Staff
25	"Fiction and Stories in Games." Guest Lecture, Clara Fernandez-Vara, Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab	Johnson, Soren. "Theme Is Not Meaning." Part I, Part II. Designer Notes, June 2010. Juul, Jesper. "Fiction." Chapter 4 in Half-Real. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780262101103.
26	Heavyweights	Games Agricola, Z-Man Games, 2007. Le Havre, Lookout Games, 2008. Power Grid, Rio Grande Games, 2004. Cosmic Encounter, Fantasy Flight Games, 2008. Caylus, Rio Grande Games, 2005.
27	Games As Art Guest Lecture, Abe Stein, Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab	[CGD] Chapter 17 Frasca, Gonzalo. "Videogames Of The Oppressed." Electronic Book Review, June 24, 2004.
28	Guest Lecture, Scott Nicholson, Library Game Lab, Syracuse University	Have games ready for playtesting!
29	Assignment 2 Showcase
30	Clients for Assignment 3 (Game for a Client) Visit Guest Lecture, Cezar Cimpeanu and James Cartreine	Rueve, Marie, and Randon S. Welton. "Violence and Mental Illness." Psychiatry 5 (May 2008): 34-48. Schwartz, Thomas L., and Tricia L. Park. "Assaults by Patients on Psychiatric Residents: A Survey and Training Recommendations." Psychiatric Services 50 (March 1999): 381-383. Ogloff, James R. P., and Michael Daffern. "The Dynamic Appraisal of Situational Aggression: An Instrument to Assess Risk for Imminent Aggression in Psychiatric Inpatients." Behavioral Sciences and the Law 24 (2006): 799-813. Antonius, Daniel, et al. "Psychiatric Assessment of Aggressive Patients: A Violent Attack on a Resident." American Journal of Psychiatry 167 (March 2010): 253-259. DSM-IV Criteria for Substance Use Disorders. "Schizophrenia." DSM-IV-TR #295.1-295.3, 295.90.
31	Assignment 3 Brainstorming and Team Formation
32	Live Action Games
33	Ethics in Games Guest Lecture, Mia Consalvo, Comparative Media Studies	Sicart, Miguel. "The Ethics of Game Design." Chapter 7 in The Ethics of Computer Games. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780262012652.
34	Assignment 3 Group Work
35	Assignment 3 Internal Playtest
36	Assignment 3 Group Work
37	Assignment 3 Playtest with GAMBIT Staff
38	Assignment 3 Group Work
39      Assignment 3 Showcase

Audio Lectures

Recordings of selected lectures are available below. All guest lectures are used with permission. Assigned readings and lecture slides (if any) for these sessions are listed under the Related Resources tab of each recording. A full schedule of reading assignments is given on the Study Materials page.

Textbook

[CGD] = Brathwaite, Brenda, and Ian Schreiber. Challenges for Game Designers: Non-Digital Exercises for Video Game Designers. Boston, MA: Charles River Media/Course Technology, 2009. ISBN: 9781584505808.

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Lecture 2: Iterative Design

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Lecture 3: Where Do Game Ideas Come From?

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Lecture 4: Prototyping

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Lecture 5: Assignment 1 Brainstorming and Team Formation

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Lecture 6: The Social Function of Games

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Lecture 8: Strategy, Skill, and Chance, Part 1

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Lecture 9: Strategy, Skill, and Chance, Part 2

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Lecture 12: Knowing Your Players

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Lecture 18: Puzzles

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Lecture 19: Abstraction and Simulation

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Lecture 20: What is Intellectual Property?

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Lecture 21: Games as Teaching Tools

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Lecture 23: Creating Sequels

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Lecture 25: Fiction and Stories in Games

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Lecture 27: Games as Art

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Lecture 30: Clients for Assignment 3 Visit

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Lecture 31: Assignment 3 Brainstorming and Team Formation

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Lecture 32: Live Action Games

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Lecture 33: Ethics in Games

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Assignments

All student work presented on this page is published with permission of the authors.

First Assignment: Card Game

Design a simple competitive or cooperative card game using only a deck of identically-sized cards (no tokens, dice, variations in card sizes, etc.) that can be set up and played between 5 minutes and 10 minutes. Design your cards to emphasize legibility, clarity, and ease-of-use. Visual artistry may be appreciated but will not be graded. We encourage using tools that speed up iteration. You only need to design and test the game for a fixed number of players: two, three, or four players. If your game accommodates different-sized groups, state any rule changes necessary.
To complete the assignment, you must design and provide a hardcopy deck of cards. Submissions will not be returned to students after grading but will be made accessible in the GAMBIT Game Lab for future classes. You must also upload PDF copies of your game rules and cards to the course website. Scans of your cards are perfectly acceptable; provide color scans if your cards have color. Rules should be properly typed and formatted.
Session #5: Team formation
Session #10: Internal playtest
Session #13: Playtest with GAMBIT Staff
Session #16: Online and deck submission deadline

Student Work

Groups	Files
Jeremy Rossman, Brian Basham, Andrew Sugaya, Andres Lopez-Pineda. "A Wizard Did It..."	Rules (PDF), Cards (PDF - 1.2MB)
Jason Strauss, et al. "The Game of Conquest."	Rules (PDF), Cards (PDF)
Michele Pratusevich, Patrick Rodriguez, Justin Zhang, et al. "Family Dysfunction."	Rules (PDF), Cards (PDF 1 of 2 - 8.2MB) (PDF 2 of 2 - 7.5MB)

Second Assignment: Board Game

Design a board game that adapts or abstracts some real-world system of your choosing, e.g. a nuclear reactor, a black market, global climate, high school popularity, MIT. Your game must be playable by two or four players. State any rule changes necessary for different-sized groups. New players need to be able to set up, learn, and complete your game under 45 minutes. Players already familiar with your rules should be able to complete a full session in under 30 minutes. Design your game bits to emphasize legibility clarity, and ease-of-use Visual artistry may be appreciated but will not be graded. Be prepared to announce the system you have chosen by the first Internal Mechanic Playtest.
To complete the assignment, you must select, design, and provide all the necessary game bits to play your game. Submissions will not be returned to students after grading but will be made accessible in the GAMBIT Game Lab for future classes. You must also upload PDF copies of your game rules, game board, and any custom cards to the course Web site. Scans of your board and cards are perfectly acceptable; provide color scans if your cards have color. Rules should be properly typed and formatted. Include a list of all the game bits and props used by your game.
Session #19: Team formation
Session #22: Internal playtest
Session #24: Playtest with GAMBIT Staff
Session #29: Showcase and submission deadline

Student Work

Groups	Files
Alec Thomson, Andrew Sugaya, et al. "Black Hat."	Rules (PDF), Cards (PDF), Board (PDF)
Michele Pratusevich, Brian Basham, Jason Strauss, et al. "Tough Luck, Dodo."	Rules (PDF), Cards (PDF - 1.5MB)

Third Assignment: Game For A Client

Design a game that can be set up and played between 20 minutes and 40 minutes. You will be given a client who needs a game designed to fulfill certain requirements that will be provided at the beginning of the assignment. The game could be a card game, board game, live-action game etc. (The game should not require significant athletic activity; keep it safe for all participants involved.) The game will be played in a single classroom. This session may be recorded on video. You will have to host/GM a session of your game, live, during the last day of classes. The intent is to provide a game that the client could host/GM themselves.
To complete the assignment, you must select, design, and provide any necessary game bits or props to play your game. You may use prototyping materials available in the GAMBIT Game Lab. Submissions will not be returned to students after grading but will be made accessible in the GAMBIT Game Lab for future classes. You must also upload PDF copies of your game rules and printed materials to the course website. Include a list of all the game bits and props used by your game.
Session #31: Team formation
Session #35: Internal playtest
Session #37: Playtest with GAMBIT Staff
Session #39: Showcase and submission deadline

Student Work

Groups	Files
Andres Lopez-Pineda, Alec Thomson, Owen Macindoe, Jayson Lynch. "Patience With Patients"	Rules (PDF), Cards (PDF), Character Sheets (PDF), Words (PDF)
Michele Pratusevich, Andrew Sugaya, Ian Ynda-Hummel, et al. "I Can't Get No Satisfaction."	Rules (PDF), Cards (PDF 1 of 2 - 7.9MB) (PDF 2 of 2 - 9.9MB)
Brian Basham, Jeremy Rossman, Jason Strauss, et al. "Keep Your Cool."	Rules (PDF), Cards (PDF)

 

Related Resources

Parlett, David. Oxford History of Board Games. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780192129987. See especially chapters 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 12, and 16.
———. A History of Card Games. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1991. ISBN: 9780192829054. See especially chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 18.
Barwood, Hal, Noal Falstein, et al. The 400 Project.
Bjork, Staffan, and Jussi Holopainen. "Games and Design Patterns." In Salen, Katie, and Eric Zimmerman. The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005, pp. 410-437. ISBN: 9780262195362.
Bateman, Chris, and Richard Boon. "Myers-Briggs Typology and Gamers." Chapter 3 in 21st Century Game Design. Boston, MA: Charles River Media, 2005. ISBN: 9781584504290.
Orbanes, Philip E. "Learning the Game: 1898-1910." Chapter 2 in The Game Makers: The Story of Parker Brothers, from Tiddledy Winks to Trivial Pursuit. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2003. ISBN: 9781591392699.
Stewart, Sean. "Alternate Reality Games."
Halpern, Charna, et al. Truth in Comedy: The Manual of Improvisation. Colorado Springs, CO: Meriwether Publishing, 1994, pp. 59-63. ISBN: 9781566080033.
Piccione, Peter A. "In Search of the Meaning of Senet." Archaeology 33 (July/August 1980): 55-58.
Curry, Andrew. "Monopoly Killer: Perfect German Board Game Redefines Genre." Wired, March 23, 2009.
Costikyan, Greg. "Randomness: Blight or Bane?" Austin, TX: Game Developers Conference, 2009.
Game Ontology Project
Frasca, Gonzalo. "Simulation 101: Simulation versus Representation."
Caillois, Roger. "Definition of Play," and "The Classification of Games." Chapters 1 and 2 in Man, Play, and Games. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780252070334.
Juul, Jesper. "Swap Adjacent Gems to Make Sets of Three: A History of Matching Tile Games." Artifact 1 (2007): 205-216.

 

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43.24 MB

Tan, Philip, and Jason Begy. CMS.608 Game Design, Fall 2010. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare), http://ocw.mit.edu/ (Accessed 28 Sep, 2011). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

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