CS 4803B: Class Overview
Lectures by Amy Bruckman
Game Genres (1/12):
JC Herz's categories:
Genre | Example |
Action | 3d Frogger |
Adventure | Myst |
Fighting | Tekken |
Puzzle | The Incredible Machine |
Role-playing | The Last Express |
Simulations | SimCity |
Sports | Madden '98 |
Strategy | Civilization |
- Why is it so hard to make a good list of categories?
- Does the genre affect:
- Intended audience?
- User-interface design?
- Implementation issues?
- Marketing strategy?
- Other aspects?
What Makes a Game Fun? (1/14):
- What is "fun"?
- Is fun a property of the software alone?
- What is the difference between game, play, and sport?
- Why do different people find different things fun?
User Interface for Games (1/26):
- Is UI design for games different from UI design for other kinds of software?
- How is design for game controlers and arcade hardware different from design for keyboards?
Play Testing (2/11):
Guest lecturer:
David Rosenbaum, GTRI
- How important is play testing? Why?
- How do you do play testing?
Design for Girls and Boys (2/19):
- Do girls generally like computer games less than boys? If so, why?
- Do girls like different kinds of games than boys?
- Should we care if girls like games less? Is this a marketing issue
or an equity issue?
- What games have been designed especially for girls?
- How do you design things that are gender neutral?
Community for Multi-User Environments (2/23):
- Game magazines now grade games down if they don't have a multi-user
component. Is multi-user gaming a fad, or the new standard? In other words,
are the reasons deep or shallow? What are those reasons?
- What is "community"?
- How are online communities similar to and different from various kinds
of real world communities?
- How can a designer support the growth of community online?
Interactive Narrative (3/2):
- What is a story?
- Do viewers want to participate in stories, or just watch them?
- What different ways have people tried to make a story "interactive"?
- What are the technical challenges in making a story "interactive"?
- What are the creative challenges?
- How realistic is the model in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age?
How desirable?