Introduction to Game Design Syllabus - The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game - page 93

Level 7

Introduction to Game
Design Syllabus

“ was a first year, first semester course taught in

the fall of 2010. Whereas my game design classes at Indiana University were
predominantly upperclassmen and women, with a smattering of sophomores,
almost the entire class at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute were freshmen. There
were other changes as well.

Introduction to Game Design �

“ �

In the Description of My Theory and Practice of Game Design syllabus, I

stated that the class was meant to cover both “ game studies theory and video

game design techniques, and we did. However, it was an uneasy mashup. The

choice to combine the two was based on several factors.

�

I had been designing and writing video games for 15 years, yet I had never
studied them formally. I learned first by playing them and then by making them.
I was aware there was a growing body of research into many aspects of video
games. In 2009, much of video game research had changed very little from
previous decades, concentrating almost entirely on what are known as AAA
titles.

AAA Game

While some people may like to suggest that AAA refers to games of high quality, in fact, it refers to
video games produced by large teams with big budgets.