How to Teach 5 Semesters of Game Design in 1 Class

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In this 2019 GDC Educators Summit talk, Jason Wiser talks about the one game design class at Tufts University, which delivers the material of five semesters of traditional game design curriculum in a single term. Think it can’t be done?
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21 окт 2021

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Комментарии : 49

@elliekirkner82 2 года назад

The dedication to build a course this ambitious is just...wow. As a fellow game dev teacher, bravo Jason!

@999Lucas 2 года назад

There is a lot to unpack here, obviously. I dropped out, and I can relate to that feeling that i need as much knowledge as I can get. As someone that has crunched after some university projects, I wish there was more in school that prepared us for that demand, and showed us how work environments and expectations work. It feels like tenured professors just teach the book sometimes since they have that comfy position already, and we dont get much 'office' experience unless it was 15 years ago. This style of course i feel like would prepare me for a work environment. Anyone ever had that design class that stacked everything vertically on you or a couple others with a book and website, and a blinking cursor? terrifying. I feel like the schema used here could be great for teaching telecom, and engineering amongst other things since youre asking people to OWN areas of the project, and INTERACT with their peers, and ASSEMBLE experts within their own group. This is an awesome talk, and it would be a shame if only game designers had access to learning this way. Bravo.

@TNothingFree 2 года назад

I'm a senior developer and these kind of talks make me wanna quit my job and go join a game dev team XD Great talk!

@OverlordHD36 2 года назад

I'm a junior embedded firmware dev with a messed up education cursus and that makes me wanna quit and move to Canada to go and join a game dev team xD

@myumui2937 2 года назад

I wish my game design teacher would put this much effort into teaching

@charles_cereal52 2 года назад

Good god, I wish my school had anything related to game design, let alone a course like this taught by a professor like this. Those lucky duckys over at tufts haha

@ghettomining7580 2 года назад

Same. My college had a diploma in computing signed up and was told it’s only Cisco networking as that’s what’s needed. I dropped out later that month. Now they teach u to make games that ethically hack users what a day we live in.

@wibulabu777 2 года назад

Why you don't make game dev club

@yohanhamilton7149 2 года назад

This reminds me my similar experience in DigiPen, a school made for game development. Glad to know that there are more and more educators going deep in teaching students how to make games! Without you, there won't be future in this industry. Salute!

@muzboz 2 года назад

Thanks for sharing all your course content Jason Wiser, much appreciated! I wanted to grab some content on Rational Game Design, and you had a nice little collection there. Wonderful! :D The course I teach covers a very similar list of content but over 2 years! :D And it still feels short on time! But overall, I do think it's great to expose students to a lot of concepts, to open their minds, and they can always dig deeper into the things they want to. I think even covering things very quickly at least helps to get over the problem of "I don't know what I don't know!" It reveals a list of concepts and topics to dig into further.

@Mkiang14 2 года назад

I took this course as an undergrad at Tufts. I can confirm, we learned a lot of disparate topics, but it totally worked.

@JasonWiser 2 года назад

You and your Cat-Astrophe team were a pleasure to work with, Michael!

@santozard 2 года назад

Burned into tears 😭 Great teacher with great caring.

@noiJadisCailleach 2 года назад

Wish i had this class and this kind of teacher back in college.

@blanddull6881 2 года назад

I'm currently taking game design courses and it's been hectic and wild. I absolutely love every minute.

@N.Doughnut 2 года назад

At what college?

@PolygonHive 2 года назад

Thanks for sharing as usual 💜

@GloofiE 2 года назад

I would've loved to take this guy's class. The curriculum at my college had two game design courses, both taught by the same teacher, and they were absolutely horrible. He had no actual experience in game dev or the industry, and it always felt like he was teaching us steps 3-6 in a 10 step lesson, and 90% of what we all learned came from Brackeys and/or each other. We joked at the end that we had the experience to make a 2-star App Store game. It was very discouraging and frustrating, especially since the rest of the CS courses were so thorough and well done.

@misomiso8228 2 года назад

Hello GDC It would be fantastic if you could put up a seminar or some date on the 'MIT Global Game jam (13:55). I'm a huge fan of your videos, and this one in particular was fantastic - I really want to attend this guys class! What especially interested me was when he referenced the MIT global game jam and the methods they use to run it. Could you please get a speaker for this for your next conference? It would be really interesting to see the process and learn more about how MIT run their programe. Ty and best

@blankblank4949 2 года назад

Really cool, i would love to take your class but luckily ive got an amazing teacher right now. My current school has extremely small class sizes so it may be my privalage, but how do you feel about students wanting to do their projects independently because they wanna create something thats theirs? Yes we need to learn how to work in a team, but id be really dissapointed if I couldnt make the game I am working on currently on my own.

@JasonWiser 2 года назад

I have worked with many students AFTER this course who wanted design support and feedback on personal games. Students know coming into this course that all projects are team projects, and they should therefore not expect to create their dream-game here. Instead, they learn how the iteration and playtest/feedback process can shape their mechanics and create an engaging experience for an audience, so that they may be ready to try their dream game next :).

@LucenProject 2 года назад

Really wanted to see that trailer.

@xBrad30x 2 года назад

Sounds like a great class. I've done a pretty good job of teaching myself most of this in a hodge podge kind of way haha.

@Smoothie128 2 года назад

Wow, such amount of knowledge in 15 weeks. I have most of the topics separated in 3-4 modules, that lasted for 2 years in my degree. So it raises a question for me, do students really understood everything in depth, or just forgot after a final assignment.

@UnreasonableOpinions 2 года назад

No, it's not really intended to replace an entire classic curriculum - it can't. The purpose of a course like this is generally to give students a chance to learn the basics of every game design task and have made some effort at each of these things, so they have a baseline of these things. It doesn't make anyone great at any one of these things in the way that many months of just one subject could, but game devs who understand a little bit of every job everyone else are much easier to work with, and often students exposed to these areas will find out that they'd rather be in the other course than the one they'd been in until then.

@Smoothie128 2 года назад

@@UnreasonableOpinions Yeah, you are right. Especially about changing course after attending a part of the degree. In this world you need to find yourself by trying everything, isn't it?

@gogauze 2 года назад

The premise is absolute insanity by the standards of modern academia. As well as being, what I feel, should be a version of the gold standard of learning. It seems like every piece of how this course is structured is bent toward applied learning and the best ways to implement each piece of material while encouraging self-driven and team oriented deep dives outside of class. Obviously, in the current system, every class can't be this demanding on personal time. But I desperately want every level of educator and administrator to see this talk and incorporate whatever they can from this methodology of learning and curriculum building. There's something for every type of class in this presentation. And it should be mined for everything it has to offer.

@seion5497 Год назад

1:52 literally the moment he said turn off your devices my phone alarm went off. Well.. guess I will see you next semester 😕

@dreamingacacia 2 года назад

if this guy was my teacher I won't be this miserable lol

@noirlavender6409 2 года назад

Ok so why exactly are we getting 2019 GDC talks in 2021? where are all the others 2019 and 2020 and 2021 talks?

@abrahamphilip302 2 года назад

Covid ma man

@gordo6908 2 года назад

gdc has a 'vault' of pay walled content. they intermittently release some of those for free (and remove some of the free ones, but maybe they've stopped doing the latter)

@MT-zy7il 2 года назад

All of these in a single course? I feel like this could be an entire program.

@JasonWiser 2 года назад

It usually is :)

@martinkonteh3703 2 года назад

Excellent title. LOL

@dhilipraja 2 года назад

its ok not to know how to unzip a file (T_T)

@manatanks 2 года назад

Warning: don't try this at home My crabs started speaking latin to exorcise a demon to let them out

@RossOzarka 2 года назад

watching this on 2x speed

@cizeek9748 2 года назад

First

@Elrog3 2 года назад

The mention of group work killed it. Group projects suck.

@TheOdinoki 2 года назад

Video games are almost exclusively made via ‘group project’ in the real world, so learning how to work in a group at school can be valuable.

@Elrog3 2 года назад

@@TheOdinoki What part of being in a group in class helps you learn to work (key word incoming) _efficiently_ in a group?

@JasonWiser 2 года назад

@@Elrog3 It is definitely one of the harder-to-predict aspects of the course-- some teams come together amazingly well, others need more support. We talk a bit about people's past experiences, and ways to address issues before they become problems. We also ask students to take risks here; to practice speaking up when something feels wrong, since our class is relatively low-stakes compared to a job where speaking up might feel more intimidating. And the Peer Reviews help create an additional element of accountability.

@vast634 2 года назад

Is the goal to create board games or computer games here? Dont understand this obsession with board games and designing board game rules. There is little transfer to the approach how to design action based computer games. Rather spend the time analyzing existing computer games, to see the rules they frequently implement.

@kekohokko7213 2 года назад

I would presume a board game is a quick and tangible way to get someone to create and evaluate game mechanics and player-game interactions without having to invest time in teaching a programming language or dev kit first. It also gets the students to make their own mistakes and learn from them.

@TommorowsSearcher 2 года назад

As someone who is studying game design, its generally easier to grasp things like board game when initially learning designs and there is a lot of transfer that may not be immedietly obvious. Like Keko is saying it's a lot easier to give someone a pen and paper and tell them to make a small prototype than it is to teach them to organize work and the common mistakes that may come up (like overscoping or getting too focused on "keeping that one mechanic") than it is to teach them a programming language/dev kit without sacrificing the teaching part. There are a few other reasons to divide it up like this, but trust me in that it's definetly worthwhile to study board game design even if you're planning to make something like a Rogue-like, Dark Souls-ish game or just a platformer.

@paulbonsma9395 2 года назад

When starting with computer games, it's too easy to get distracted by things that aren't related to the core game design, like creating fancy art, audio, vfx, etc. Working on board games forces you to think about the mechanics. Also, I think it takes an experienced game designer to see all the subtleties and interactions in the mechanics of a real time game. Board games are by nature more turn based, and easier to analyze and understand (cause and effect). Analyzing and creating board games gives you a solid foundation for computer games.

@JasonWiser 2 года назад

@@paulbonsma9395 I agree with everything you said, Paul, and would add two things: (1) in large and small digital game companies, designers frequently "paper prototype" mechanics; we try ideas in a tangible form where it is easier to iterate quickly. (2) By introducing the students to tabletop games in the first month, they tend to do a good job of focusing on mechanics over theme in their final projects, and also they tend to scope their final projects more reasonably; they are thinking about unique core game loops they can develop rather than the epic RPG/novels they might previously have had in mind.