Certificate in Game Design & Creation

Fundamentals of Game Design, Classroom, UW Bothell, Autumn 2012

This course covers a foundation of topics necessary to good game design. Its objective is to orient students to the numerous perspectives a designer must understand: psychology, project management, marketing, entertainment, narrative, technology, and others. The course also introduces the concept of a game design document and the other methods of communication that designers use to reduce their ideas to practice.

Over the course of the term students will work on creating a game design using the concepts explored in class. Students will work in groups to develop a game concept and prototype for presentation and review by peers and industry professionals.

Topics include:

• History of non-digital and digital gaming
• Overview of games and game industry today
• Economics of gaming and exploration of game genres
• Psychological dimensions of games, player objectives, rule systems, social game interaction, competitive and cooperative play, interface design and game mechanics
• Project management and team dynamics
• Conceiving and writing a game concept proposal
• Development of game prototypes and iterative playtesting

Game Mechanics & Systems Design, Classroom, UW Bothell, Winter 2013

This course focuses on the user experience - game play, story, theme, and fun. It gives students knowledge of how to create compelling original game content, which is the core of a successful game. The idea of this course is to cover concepts that make games successful regardless of platform or production methods.

Topics include:

• Creating game play content
• Brainstorming
• Systems design
• Story design
• Technology/AI design
• What makes a game fun?
• Player psychology
• Business models
• Metagames
• User metrics

Agile Game Development, Classroom, UW Bothell, Spring 2013

This course focuses on the management skills and processes required to succeed in a game development studio. It looks at the structure and roles of a development team and gives students insight on the challenges a dev team faces.

In this course, each class is divided into a lecture portion and a lab portion. Students form development teams and put the lecture principles to use to develop a game design together over the ten-week term. Each student takes on a role mirroring those of professional dev teams, such as management, systems design, prototyping, storyboarding, visual design, plot and character development. At the end of the term, each team presents its design to the class and a group of industry professionals for critique and discussion.

Topics include:

• Agile project management as applied to game design
• Advantages of agile over waterfall project management
• Roles and responsibilities of a game development team
• Creating a viable business model
• Creating a prototype
• Working collaboratively with team members
• Improving your ability to estimate the amount of time to complete tasks
• How to meet deadlines
• Prioritizing features and cutting back as necessary due to time constraints
• Designing a viable user interface