Welcome to Introduction to Game Design

This is an introductory course on game design. It is meant to teach game design fundamentals, which are useful for a variety of pursuits. Most obviously, game design fundamentals are central to game design in both digital and analog contexts. Intellectually, questions around game design are at the heart of psychology, social interaction, and human meaning making. More practically, the skills developed in game design are useful in collaborative creative problem solving contexts that combine cultural work, the design of material artifacts, and psychology.

Project 1: Game Modification Groups

Project 2: Abstract Games

Project 3: Social Games

Project 4: Narrative Games

Project 5: Final Game Design Project

Doing the course as a wiki was inspired by David Wiley's 2010 GLS Keynote on Openness. This wiki format has been useful because:

• It doesn't lock out non-UW students (which is bad for having guest lectures, or auditors).
• You can contribute content. 
• It is a living document that can grow and evolve after iterations of work. 
• It will enable you to access or view content even after you've graduated.
• It enables sharing a syllabus with the broader academic community.

The original design of this course syllabus was modeled on Eric Zimmerman's class.