One gaming design exercise in a seminar

Last week I tried a new exercise in my gaming seminar, and wanted to post about it because it went well and might be useful. I’d also like to build on the exercise.

To recap: at this point in the class we’re explored a range of gaming forms. We started with tabletop games, moved on to role-playing games, then jumped to the digital world, and followed up with gamification. Throughout we’ve explored the higher education implications for each via practice (playing games), scholarship (reading research), and design (making stuff). Now students are working on their final game projects, a process taking weeks and a lot of iterative work.

At this point I wanted to try synthesizing the class contents. One of my goals was to make sure they can bring the entire semester’s work to bear on their projects. Even if they’re producing a game in one format (say, tabletop) they can apply many design and pedagogical lessons from the others. A second goal was to firm up their understanding of gaming and education overall, so they have a better chance of taking that away from the semester’s experience.

Other thoughts went into my planning. The event should be creative, focused on design. It should encourage them to dive into their memories and class work. It should also be light enough that we could do it in one class session without bogging down their project processes. It should also not focus on a topic we’ve already dwelled on (for example, storytelling, historical or science simulation). Theoretically, it’s…