School of CSE - Details Needed for Course Revision Proposal Course Title: * COMP4431 - Game Design Workshop Proposer: * Malcolm Ryan Rationale Why is the revision being proposed? * The arrangement with COFA has changed and the course will no longer be run in connection with SOMA3610. Instead this subject will be made available for Digital Media students to do as an elective. Experience from 2006 showed that the course would be better if it was more focused. The principles of game design seem to be the key thing that this course can offer which is not already taught in other courses. The new description reflects this focus. What are the academic objectives? * To provide students with the ability to think about games analytically to understand how the structure of the game affects the resulting play experience with regard to fun, pacing, social experience, etc. * To provide students with an opportunity to exercise this thinking to design and create their own games. * To teach the importance of prototyping and playtesting as a game design process. * To give artists and programmers an opportunity to work together. Which programs/stage(s) does it serve? What proportion of students do you expect to come from which program? (It is legitimate not to have a full answer to that, but if you do have one, we'd like to know). * Computer Science/Engingeering - 3645, 3978 and related * Media and Communications - 3402, 3994, 4764 * Digital Media - 4810 Why can the same objectives not be achieved with the current course? * The current course was not open to students outside of CSE. * The current course content included material in graphics and other areas which was not particularly helpful, and was distracting from the focus on game design. How does the proposed course relate to other courses? * The course will be supported by many others. Students with backgrounds in graphics, art, writing, networking etc will all have skills to contribute. What overlap is there? * The aim of this revision is to eliminate overlap. If there is any overlap, why is this justified/not a problem? Stakeholders and Consultation Who are the potential stakeholders, who was consulted about the proposal (inside the School as well as outside), what was the result of that consultation? * Consultation with COFA staff led to an agreement that the arrangement with SOMA3610 was unmanageable and that offering the subject as an elective was better. * Consultation with the school of Film and Media suggested making the subject available to Media students. Enrolment Impacts Likely enrolment (with justification), and impact on enrolments of other courses. * The subject was very popular in 2006 and was initially over-enrolled (with a class of only 20). * Next year the aim is to increase the class size to 30 making positions available for at least 10 students from outside of CSE. * While it would be possible to take in more than 20 CSE students, it is felt that too large a class would damage the workshop atmosphere and that more CSE students would create an imbalance between programmers and artists. * More staff with experience in game design would be needed (to run tutorial classes) if the class was to be made bigger. Justification of Prerequisites (or lack thereof) * CSE prerequisite: Computer Graphics COMP3421 and a WAM of 65 Computer graphics is necessary to give students the skills to program a game. * For other programs there will be no explicit prerequisite as it is not expected that there will be a very large number of students from them and we want to keep the barrier to entry low. Delivery and Assessment Anything noteworthy about delivery mode, assessment (with justification). * The delivery mode will include actively playing games (both on computers and off) in class in order to reflect on them and analyse them. A workshopping process will be used to get students discussing the games and thinking about what made them work. Later this workshopping process will be applied to games written by students in assignments to teach students to constructively critique games and to receive feedback. * There will be several short assignments in which students create and prototype games in small mixed groups (containing both programmers and artists). The aim will be to keep the time available short (2 weeks) to encourage rapid prototyping of the gameplay. Experience from 2006 shows that given too much time, students do a lot of work on art and graphics at the expense of gameplay. Groups will be rearranged for each new assignment. Handbook Entry Game design. How do I invent a new game? What makes a game fun? What is the role of story in games? How do I make my game balanced? The importance of prototyping and playtesting. This subject aims to bring together students from Digital Media, Media and Communications and Computer Science to work in teams together to invent, prototype and workshop games. The focus is on the design of play, not on programming or graphics. There will be guest lectures from the games industry. Textbooks/References Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design, New Riders Syllabus Indicative syllabus / overview of contents (at a level of detail well beyond that of the handbook entry) Game analysis: What is a game? Different kinds of fun: - creative, destructive, social, collecting, competing, etc Games as source of "Flow" - The balance between frustration and boredom Formal elements of games: - Player interaction model - Objectives - Core gameplay - Resources - Timing Dramatic elements - Character - Back story - Narrative Graphical elements - How visual style affects gameplay - UI design Social elements - Games as team activities - Massively Multiplayer games - Cheating Game design process - Paper prototyping - Software Prototyping (the PyGame library) - Playtesting Working in Industry Effect on School Resources: 1. Who is proposed to teach the proposed new course, and what impact would this have on their planned/current allocation? Malcolm Ryan. This would involve no change in his allocation. 2. What sort of tutorial component is proposed, if any? The lectures are intended to be run in a semi-tutorial fashion. If the class is larger than 30 it will be necessary to split them into separate tutorial groups in order to make this work 3. What is the likely impact on lab utilisation (this relates to assignment and project work as well as scheduled labs? Experience from 2006 shows that students are very keen to work on these assignments for large amounts of time. It was often complained that the standard allocation of lab time and disk space were not enough. 4. Any other resource needs? E.g. special print/disk quota, access to servers, access to special machines, special labs. Students in 2006 often complained of insufficient disk quota for this subject, because many of their games involved large image and sound files. Team accounts with extra quota would be helpful.