This course is a creative hands-on studio where we will make games, play games, break games, and engage with play from a systems perspective. Students will learn the basic principles of programming, rapid prototyping, game design, collaboration, and systems thinking. Students need no prior knowledge of programming, and will gain the skills of an intro to programming class through first principles in a playful process.
Video games have been around for less than a century—physical games have been around for millennia. Physical games offer an invitation to play, an excuse to be social, and create a magic circle in which the players are free to explore, create, and learn from their own agency. The act of playing games is reflective, but the process of making games is an art form and requires playful systems thinking.
The toys and tools we play with, shape the way we think. The goal of this course is to rethink an ancient medium for critical thought (physical games) by using modern tools and techniques in playful ways. In this course, students will use an open-source smart tabletop game system called Blinks to make their own games or physically and digitally interactive experiences.
- Think critically about games and play as expressive media
- Introductory hardware programming skills and principles
- Design for physical and digital media
- Design modular systems
- Work cooperatively to achieve artistic goals