Communicating and Computers
COMT 111a
Winter 2008
Workshop: M. 2-5pm, Sequoyah 142, see schedule and policies
Office hours: W. 10:30am-12:00pm, Media Center / Communication 246
Website: http://www.noahwf.com/08winter/communicating
Workshop Faculty
Noah Wardrip-Fruin
email: nwf [at] ucsd [dot] edu (email contact preferred)
paper mail: Department of Communication, 0503, UCSD
office: room 246, Media Center and Communication Building (MCC)
Materials
Book:
- The New Media Reader (NMR), Wardrip-Fruin and Montfort, eds
Other:
- You will need to purchase supplies for your game design project, as required by your design
General Course Notes
Expectations:
- Agenda items. At the beginning of each workshop meeting we will build an agenda, which will drive the discussion for the remainder of our meeting. Each student will bring at least one "agenda item" -- a particular idea they wish to discuss, which will also be posted to the student's blog before each week's class time. This idea must be grounded in at least one specific page reference (to a reading for that week) or reference to a specific portion or mechanic of a piece of digital media (e.g., Wikipedia). Agenda items form an important part of the participation requirement. Two agenda items must be blogged before class meetings that follow holidays (28 January and 25 February).
- Grading. 40% of each student's grade is determined by participation in group critiques and discussions, for which preparation (doing the assigned reading and media study, preparing agenda items) and attendance at course and group meetings are (naturally) prerequisites. Given this, each missed meeting will automatically lower the student's participation score by one letter grade (unless a note from a doctor is presented). Beyond participation, each project is worth a percentage of the total course grade (6% for the blog project, 17% for the Wikipedia project, and 37% for the game design project).
- Academic misconduct. Of course, any kind of academic misconduct is unacceptable.
Assignments:
- Blog project. Due 14 January. Requires choosing a blog template, changing default colors and fonts, adding and populating a link list, adding and populating another sidebar component, writing a blog post describing what was done and why, then emailing the blog URL to the faculty member. The blog project page has more information.
- Wikipedia project. Due 28 January and March 03. This requires learning the technical and social rules of Wikipedia (through reading and experimentation) and then doing at least one of the following by 28 January: making three substantial edits to existing pages, expanding a "stub" into a full article, or creating a new full article. Make a blog post giving your Wikipedia user name and links to your work. A followup blog post is due March 03, reporting on the status of your contributions. If your contributions do not survive through February you are less likely to score well.
- Game design project. Due 25 February and 10 March. This project has a number of elements.
- You must design a game that attempts to embody values/ideas, in the sense introduced in the VAP readings.
- You must create a prototype of this game, and playtest it.
- You must bring the prototype, a description of your design decisions, and a description of your playtest to class on 25 February. You will turn in your design document (at least 1000 words, citing course readings) and your playtest report (a summary of findings, followed by your notes).
- You must revise your game, complete it, and bring it to class on 10 March. You will turn in the complete, playable game and instructions.
You may take different approaches embodying values ideas, including (a) directly modeling real-world processes (as in the Bogost reading), (b) providing a more abstract experience of something related to values/ideas (e.g., a particular kind of moral choice), or (c) attempting to teach information related to a set of values/ideas. The important thing is that players come away with a clear sense of what your game is trying to express that is different from other games (which is why playtesting is key). You may work in groups or individually. You may design any kind of game you want -- a tabletop game, a computer game, a full-body sport, or any other form. In your playtesting, at least one session must involve you only as an observer, instructing players only with a written copy of the rules, not answering any questions except after play. Take careful notes during playtests, and ask questions afterward to determine game's strengths, weaknesses, and values experience for players. If your game involves full-body play, such as a sport, you do not need to turn in a full set of play equipment (as you must for a tabletop game) but you must turn in documentary video of a full game being played.
07 Jan
Workshop meeting:
- Syllabus and course overview, blog creation, linking, blog customization.
Project assignment:
- Blog project. Due 14 January.
14 Jan
Workshop meeting:
- Discuss readings, history and present of information networks and tools (including blogs). Hands on with wikis.
To read:
- NMR: The Garden of Forking Paths, Jorge Luis Borges, 1941
- NMR: As We May Think, Vannevar Bush, 1945
- NMR: From Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework, Douglas Engelbart, 1962
- NMR: From Computer Lib / Dream Machines, Theodor H. Nelson, 1970-1974
Project assignment:
- Wikipedia project. Due 28 January and March 03
21 Jan
No workshop meeting: holiday. But keep reading and working on your Wikipedia project.
To read:
28 Jan
Workshop meeting:
- Discuss readings, issues of the commons, community, interaction, and procedurality. Show projects.
To read:
- NMR: Six Selections by the Oulipo
- NMR: From Computer Power and Human Reason, Joseph Weizenbaum, 1976
- NMR: From Plans and Situated Actions, Lucy A. Suchman, 1987
04 Feb
Workshop meeting:
- Cancelled due to illness.
To read:
- Online: Playing Politics: Videogames for Politics, Activism, and Advocacy, Ian Bogost, 2006 (web)
- Online: Saving the World, One Video Game at a Time, Clive Thompson, 2006 (web)
- Online: Videogames of the Oppressed: Critical Thinking, Education, Tolerance, and Other Trivial Issues, Gonzalo Frasca, 2004 (web)
- Handout: VAP materials
11 Feb
Workshop meeting:
- Begin with survey. Discuss readings, "Values at Play" project (VAP), start design journals (invitation code given in class) and add user name from survey. VAP cards, form groups, brainstorm games.
To read:
- Online: A game design methodology to incorporate social activist themes, Mary Flanagan and Helen Nissenbaum, 2007 (web)
- Online: Bias in computer systems, Batya Friedman and Helen Nissenbaum, 1996 (web)
- Online: Play as research: The iterative design process, Eric Zimmerman, 2003 (web)
Project assignment:
- Game design project. Prototype and playtest due 25 February, final due 03 March
18 Feb
No workshop meeting: holiday. But keep reading and working on your game design project.
To read:
- Online: Do artifacts have politics? Langdon Winner, 1988 (web)
- Online: Using heuristics to improve the playability of games, Desurvire, Caplan, & Toth, 2004 (library e-reserves)
- Online: Jonathan Belman's game reviews (web)
25 Feb
Workshop meeting:
- Discuss readings, present game prototypes, turn in design document and playtest report.
To read:
- Online: Where are the missing masses? Sociology of a door, Bruno Latour, 1994 (web)
- Online: Manufacturing gender in commercial and military cockpit design, R Weber, 1997 (library e-reserves)
- Online: GameFlow: a model for evaluating player enjoyment in games, Sweester & Wyeth, 2005 (library e-reserves)
03 March
Workshop meeting:
- Discuss readings, Wikipedia project check-in, more.
To read:
- NMR: Personal Dynamic Media, Alan Kay & Adele Goldberg, 1977
- NMR: From Mindstorms, Seymour Papert, 1980
- NMR: Cardboard Computers, Pelle Ehn and Morten Kyng, 1991
10 March
Workshop meeting:
To read:
- NMR: The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat, Chip Morningstar and R. Randall Farmer, 1991
- NMR: A Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway, 1985