Monday, August 27
Introduction to the course and to college
ARG Development Team Picking

Wednesday, August 29
Introduction to games: What are “games” and what is “play”?
Reading (due today): Rock, Paper, Scissors (RPS) Introduction, Chapters 1 & 2
Writing (also due today): Pick one of your papers from your last year of high school (or a college application essay). Reread it. Name three things you did well, three you struggled with, and choose three writing goals for this semester. (See Baseline Assignment sheet.) All written assignments should be uploaded to Blackboard as .doc or .docx documents. Comments will be returned electronically with grade packets in pdf form.

Monday, September 3
Punishment and Rewards: The Basics of Game Design
Reading: Reality is Broken (RIB) Introduction
“Authentic Accountability” (Blackboard)
ARIS: Sign up with an account on the ARIS website (http://arisgames.org). Use your Richmond email to do this – Dr. Bezio will add you to an empty game as an editor using this email.
Play: Pokemon GO (get to at least level 3).

Wednesday, September 5
Introduction to F.E.A.T. and Source Types
Introduction to ARIS Software
Reading: RIB Chapters 1 & 2
Dev Team Day! Brainstorm possible game ideas.
Play: Now that you have an ARIS account, choose one of the existing ARIS games on campus and play it for a couple of hours. Take notes on what you liked, what you didn’t like, etc. You may have to search by title for one of them: Zed Vs. the Dead, CSI: Richmond, Monster Hunter, DevTeamPrime, DevTeamAlpha, Robin’s Hood, The Richmond Plague, College is Broken, Venom, Dev Team Se7en, Dev Team Ei8ht.
ARIS: Write up a paragraph on your Dev Blog about your thoughts and reactions to the ARIS game you played.

Monday, September 10
LIBRARY LAB DAY – Meet in Boatwright Library
Reading: RPS Chapter 3
Writing: Choose a game you would like to research (NOT Monopoly) and get approval for it from Dr. Bezio before class (due by 5pm Sept. 7th). Bring the game’s title, developer, and year of publication to class for Library Lab, along with a short list (5-10) of things about it you find interesting. (Make sure it is a game you have played or will play before you finish your paper – it can be one from class, either that we’ve already played or that we will play later in the semester.)

Wednesday, September 12
Monopoly Day
Reading: RIB Chapters 3-5
“Secret History of Monopoly,” Pilon (link on Blackboard)
Writing: Exhibit Summary Due (see F.E.A.T. sheet for assignment)
ARIS: Begin posting to your dev team blogs with things that strike you as good ideas – texts, images, links to other games or sites. (One blog post due today.)

Monday, September 17
Settlers of Catan, Day One
Reading: RPS Chapters 4 & 5
Research: Find one Fact Source & one Argument Source for yourself, and one Fact Source and one Argument Source for your partner.
ARIS: Post one (350-1,000 words) proposal for your part of the ARIS game on your dev team’s blog. What will you need to research in order to make them happen? What kinds of games or stories are they “like”? What are your inspirations (positive or negative)? What are the goals you have in your ideas? Post to the dev blog.

Wednesday, September 19
Settlers of Catan, Day Two
Reading: RIB Chapter 6
ARIS: Post a comment on one other person’s proposal with feedback on their ideas (choose “empty” proposals first so that everyone has at least one comment on each of their proposals). Say what you like about it, what you think might be a problem, and one suggestion for how it fits with another idea (either one discussed by the group, one in another proposal, or an idea of your own). This should be at least a paragraph in length.

Monday, September 24
RPG Games (Zork & Werewolf)
Play: Play Zork (At least an hour. Take notes.) (link on Blackboard)
Reading: RIB Chapters 7 & 8
Writing: Close Reading Due for “Gamer” Paper
ARIS: Comment on a second person’s proposal (one paragraph). If there are proposals without comments, choose one of those to make your second comment.

Wednesday, September 26
Why do we play games? How do games “make” us want to play them?
Reading: RPS Chapters 6 & 7
Play: PacMan (at least 30 minutes) (link on Blackboard)
ARIS: Comment on a third person’s proposal (one paragraph). There shouldn’t be, but if there are proposals without comments, choose one of those.

Monday, October 1
Reading: RIB Chapters 9 & 10
Play: The Oregon Trail (Try to succeed—play five times or until you win) (link on Blackboard)
Writing: Argument Summary Due for “Gamer” Paper
ARIS: Revise your proposal in light of the comments you received. This should be a new post.

Wednesday, October 3
Read: Jenkins & Cassell – “From Quake Grrls to Desperate Housewives” (Blackboard)
Yee – “The Locker Room Utopia” (Blackboard)
Anderson & Levene – “Lara” (Blackboard)
ARIS: As a team, pick three “favorite” proposals (or less). You can discuss this on the blog or in a team meeting, but someone needs to ultimately make a post stating the 1-3 “favorite” ideas.

Monday, October 8
Work Day! Plan to try to outline the major beats of your game and determine a win-condition (or set of win-conditions) and a loss-condition. Start a list of possible objects and characters that you will need to put into ARIS.
Reading: RIB Chapters 13 & 14
Writing: Summarize a Game Theory from Rock, Paper, Scissors or Reality is Broken (see “Gamer” Paper packet)
ARIS: Have one team member post your “working idea” to the blog. This can be in paragraph or outline form, and will probably be pretty short. It can (and probably will) refer to one or two proposals that your team has decided to adopt. (Do this at the end of the workday in class.)

Wednesday, October 10
Play: PORTAL DAY ONE!!! Who are you? Where are you? What is going on? (No spoilers for those of you who might already have played the game.)
Play: Test Chambers 00-10
(IF you are having trouble and can’t spend too much time solving the puzzles, you may find a walkthrough here: http://www.ign.com/wikis/portal/Walkthrough. I STRONGLY recommend that you try to solve them yourself first, just because it’s more fun that way. If you are playing on a computer, USE A MOUSE. The trackpad will make some of the later test chambers difficult.)
Writing: Outline and annotated bibliography due for “Gamer” Paper

Wednesday, October 17
Draft Day! Bring in a draft of your “Gamer” Paper, along with the achievement packet for the paper. We will be workshopping your papers in peer groups in class. (Also upload a copy to Blackboard.)

Monday, October 22
PORTAL Day Two
Play: Test Chambers 11-17
ARIS: Have one team member post a timeline for your team’s development process. What are your deadlines or “milestones” for each element of the game? Every team member should also post their own personal milestone timeline.

Wednesday, October 24
Portal Day Three
Play: Finish Portal
Writing: Completed “Gamer” paper due. Bring in your marked-up draft from Peer Review Day to hand in to Dr. Bezio. Your paper should be uploaded to Blackboard before classtime.
ARIS: Post a list of things you need help finding in order to make YOUR job on your dev team easier (everyone will post). What kind of story are you telling (mystery, adventure, sci fi)? What kind of mechanics are you using? What games are you imitating? What things do you want to try out?

Monday, October 29
FPS Games, Complex Plots, and Games as Social Criticism
Play: Bioshock Infinite: Lighthouse through Raffle Park
Reading: Videogames and violence articles (there are four of them) (Blackboard)
Writing: Choose a second game that you feel compares in some useful way to the game you worked on in your “Gamer” paper. It might be the game that inspired your first game, it can be a sequel to your first game, or it might be an unrelated game from the same place, that uses the same mechanics, or which has a similar story element (or something else), or it might have a completely different approach to the same core goal or theme. However, it is very important that the two games share something, but also that they have significant or meaningful differences. (When in doubt, talk to Dr. Bezio.)
ARIS: Keep providing updates and comments throughout the process. Remember that you can earn points for non-assigned blog posts!

Wednesday, October 31
Play: Bioshock Infinite: Blue Ribbon through Battleship Bay (take the gondola to Soldier’s Field)
Writing: Do an Exhibit Summary of your chosen second game.
ARIS: Everyone should start writing up one “test doc” a week (starting with the first due Nov. 5th). You should either play your dev team’s ARIS game or “walk through” the game in the program, looking for bugs, plot holes, things that feel “weird” or don’t make sense, missing pieces of information or collectables… whatever. Your “test doc” should note what you think/know is wrong, as well as at least one suggestion of how to fix it. It should walk step-by-step through the game, with “okay” or “good” written where things don’t need to be fixed.

Monday, November 5
Work Day! It’s time to be polishing things up! Make sure everything is getting into ARIS! Start doing “full” tests by playing through the game – and yes, if that means you have to go wandering outside to make it happen, GO OUTSIDE. Take notes as you play through. Play in groups and talk about the experience as cooperative or competitive. Post thoughts to your dev blog.
Reading: RIB Finish
ARIS: For ARIS, writers should have all the major beats drafted and be working getting the text polished. Artists should have some images or ideas for images/audio/video and know WHAT they want, even if they haven’t made/found it yet. Designers should have the whole game outlined and know what the challenges are, even if they haven’t been polished or finalized yet (for instance, it might say “trivia question here” instead of having the actual question). They need to know that there are “pickups” or “GPS checkins” in particular places. Programmers should have a basic sense of how many steps there are in the whole game and the order (if there IS an order) they go in. Producers should have the whole “game plan” sorted out, know what needs to be done next, and should be working on “testing” a little more heavily than the other roles. Producers really need to make sure that their comments are HELPFUL, not negative or stressful to other team members… here’s where leadership skills come in! Remember to post a test doc!

Wednesday, November 7
Play: Bioshock Infinite: Soldier’s Field through the Aerodrome (meet Daisy)
Writing: Do a Close Reading on your second game.

Monday, November 12
Work Day!
Writing: Compete a preliminary outline and annotated bibliography for your “Game Critic” paper.
ARIS: Test doc 2.

Wednesday, November 14
Play: Bioshock Infinite: Finkton Docks through the Factory (to the piano scene)

Monday, November 19
Work Day!
Writing: Draft of your “Game Critic” paper due to your partner in class (and uploaded to Blackboard). You will give a copy to someone else from class and take it home over the weekend.
ARIS: Make sure you’re posting final copies of documents, files, etc. on ARIS and to your dev blog for feedback. Give feedback to other people whose ideas mix with yours. Test, test, test. Test doc 3 due today.

Monday, November 26
Play: Bioshock Infinite: Prosperity Plaza through Memorial Gardens, back to the gate at Comstock House (with Songbird)
ARIS: Get your game into sort-of playable shape by next class!
Writing: Return your draft comments to your partner (who will turn them in with the final version of their paper).

Wednesday, November 28
QA Day
ARIS: Half of each team will play through the OTHER team’s game and provide feedback to the remaining members of the other team. In the industry, this is an “Alpha Test.” Work through the games out loud. Team members not playing should keep a list of problems and try to fix them as best they can. Team members should post about their experience testing and fixing. Remember to post to your blog about what went right and wrong (for Dec. 3)!

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30 BY 5PM
Writing: Final “Game Critic” paper due.

Monday, December 3
Play: Bioshock Infinite: Finish
ARIS: Alpha-test doc.

Wednesday, December 5
Game to Cert! (In other words, turn it in!)
Work Day or Play Day? (The class will decide.)
ARIS: YOUR BLOG IS DUE TODAY. Any changes or updates made to the blog after noon on December 6 will not be considered for achievements.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7
ARIS Paper due by 5pm on Blackboard

Self-Reflective assignment are due December 11 by noon on Blackboard (instead of your final exam—there is no exam in this class).