UCSD COGR 275 Computer Game Studies

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COGR 275 Computer Game Studies

 Games Education 

Course


Contents

Teachers

Instructors

  • Noah Wardrip-Fruin

Course Background Information

Location

Department of Communication, 0503, UC San Diego

Classification

See: Areas for classifing for your course.

Primary classification: Game Studies

Course Structure

Agenda items. At the beginning of each seminar 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. 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 game (studied for that week). Agenda items form an important part of the seminar participation requirement, which constitutes 30% of the final grade.

Studying games. After the first week, this seminar will involve significantly less reading than many graduate seminars. This is designed to leave time for careful study of each of the games we will discuss. The games are our primary material and, except as specially noted, require over an hour of concentrated engagement in order to form even initial impressions.

Week by week topics

27 September Seminar meeting: Discussion of seminar topics, syllabus, student interests, etc. What is computer game studies? Game previews. 4 October Seminar meeting: Agenda items. Discuss readings and games. Computer Game Studies (Grad) Fall 2006 [1]

To read:

  • "Games and Sports," from The Man-made World, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1914.
  • "Nature and Significance of Play as a Cultural Phenomenon," from Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture, Johan Huizinga, 1938 (as reprinted in The Game Design Reader, edited by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman).
  • "The Definition of Play" & "The Classification of Games," from Man, Play, and Games, Roger Caillois, 1958 (also as in The Game Design Reader).
  • "Spacewar: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums," Stewart Brand, 1972 (a version with OCR problems is available online).
  • " Adventure as a Game," from Interactive Fiction: the Computer Storygame Adventure, Mary Ann Buckles (excerpt from first PhD dissertation on computer games -- UCSD, 1985 -- which can be downloaded via UCSD computers/proxies).
  • "Play and Ambiguity," from The Ambiguity of Play, Brian Sutton-Smith, 1997 (also as in The Game Design Reader)

To play:

  • Spacewar!, Martin Graetz, Stephen Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen (1962). You and a partner will have to practice to get a sense of how to play, and you can\'t play alone, with this version using (mostly) the original 1962 code running in a Java PDP-1 emulator.
  • Adventure, William Crowther and Donald Woods (1976). There are two ways to run Adventure:
    • The long-port way. You can play a version of Adventure ported some distance to another platform, like the z-machine. This will not get you the authentic experience (for example, the commands shown in the Buckles chapter\'s excerpts won\'t all work) but it might be easier. It\'s probably how it will be installed in the lab, unfortunately, using the Zoom z-machine for the Mac. If you go this route, you can choose a z-machine to install on your own machine, then download the z-code file for the port by Graham Nelson.
    • The short-port way. You can play a version of Adventure ported to Fortran 77 (much closer to the DEC PDP-10 Fortran "350 points" version by Woods). If you have a Mac, you can try downloading the version I compiled (then create a "/Library/advent" directory, put a copy of "atext.txt" into it, open Terminal, navigate into the "advent" directory, and type "./advent"). Also, Mike Caloud has compiled a version for Windows. Alternately, you can use g77 (or another Fortran compiler) to compile the source yourself from here. (On a Mac, g77 is easy to get via Fink.) If you compile yourself, just change the path to the data file to ".." in both the makefile and ainit.f (more Computer Game Studies (Grad) Fall 2006 [2] on where to make changes in the readme).
  • If you\'re new to interactive fiction, you probably should also read Emily Short\'s introduction.

11 October Seminar meeting: Agenda items. Discuss readings and games. To read:

  • Twisty Little Passages: preface, chapters 1-5.
  • "Enlightening Interactive Fiction: Andrew Plotkin\'s Shade," Jeremy Douglass. (Read this only after having played Shade to completion.)
  • "The Creation of Floyd the Robot in Planetfall," Steve Meretzky.

To play:

  • Zork I, Marc Blank and Dave Lebling (1980). Will be installed in the lab, can also download for different platforms. These downloads can be used as-is, or the DOS version can be run through DOSBox, or the ZORKI.DAT file can be used with your favorite z-machine. (Zoom might give you trouble with the last of these options on OSX, but Spatterlight won\'t.)
  • Shade, Andrew Plotkin (2000). Will be installed in the lab, can also download z-code. For this and other z-code games you need a z-machine, as described above for Adventure.
  • Galatea, Emily Short (2000). Will be installed in the lab, can also download z-code. There are also some useful notes provided as a sidebar to the applet version. Play through to at least three different endings.

18 October Seminar meeting: Agenda items. Discuss readings and games. To read:

  • Half-Real: preface, chapters 1-3.
  • " Combat in Context," Nick Montfort. (This will be available when the next issue of Game Studies goes live.)

To play:

  • Atari Flashback 2. We\'ll study a number of games on this relatively authentic recreation of the highly influential home console. Some games require another player for full experience, so either arrange with another seminar member or find a friend/partner willing to sign up for several hours of gameplay, discussion, and note-taking. The Flashback contains 40 games and we will only scratch the surface. Other Flashback games worth your attention range from classics like River Raid (Carol Shaw, 1982) -- one of the few early games designed and programmed by a woman -- to newly-created "homebrew" 2600 titles.
  • With a partner, in two-player mode:
    • Pong, Al Alcorn, et al (1972). The first computer game to achieve mainstream success. It\'s a little hard to play with the Flashback\'s joysticks, but if you have original legacy Atari paddle controllers you can plug them into your Flashback unit (I got mine from Atari Ace).
    • Combat, Joe Decuir and Larry Wagner (1977). This game came with the Atari 2600 console. After you\'ve gotten proficient at both a tank and a plane variation of the game, switch over to the Flashback\'s two-player Outlaw (David Crane, 1978) and a couple of its variations.
  • In single-player mode:
    • Yars\' Revenge, Howard Scott Warshaw (1981). Get through a few levels of this.
    • Pitfall!, David Crane (1982). This game has a 20 minute time limit, but in your first 30 minutes of play (all that is required) that won\'t be your main problem.
  • For comparative consideration:
    • Video Chess, Larry Wagner, et al (1979). Compare with the Chess board game.
    • Adventure, Warren Robinett (1980). Compare with the original textual Adventure.
    • Arcadia, Nick Fortugno, Frank Lantz, Eric Zimmerman, gameLab (2003). This new configuration of classic arcade gameplay is available online if you put up with some advertising.

25 October Seminar meeting: Agenda items. Discuss readings and games. To read:

  • Half-Real: chapters 4-6.

To play:

  • Karateka, Jordan Mechner (1984). This may be installed in the lab -- if problems can be worked out with the Apple II emulator. If you want to play this on your own machine, The New Media Reader (which I edited with Nick Montfort) contains a CD that includes the game file, an emulator, and an Apple II ROM for which we got permission from Apple. Other ways of running the game at home probably don\'t include an officially sanctioned ROM image.
  • Tetris, Alexey Pajitnov, with Dmitry Pavlovsky and Vadim Gerasimov (1985). An early DOS version will be installed in the lab, using a universal version of the DOSBox emulator for the Mac. (I found this emulator worked well on my Mac, though I had to remove the first line and customize the final lines of the included Preferences file.) Feel free to download DOSBox for your platform and play on your own machine.
  • SimCity, Will Wright, Maxis (1989). You can now play the original online as a Java applet.
  • Doom, John Carmack, John Romero, Sandy Petersen, et al, id Software (1993). This will be installed in the lab. It can also be downloaded and played with a DOS emulator.

1 November Seminar meeting: Agenda items. Discuss readings and games. To read:

  • First Person: Cyberdrama (essays by Janet Murray, Ken Perlin, and Michael Mateas).
  • First Person: Ludology (essays by Markku Eskelinen, Espen Aarseth, and Stuart Moulthrop).
  • " The Sands of Time: Crafting a Videogame Story," Jordan Mechner. (Read after playing Prince of Persia.)
  • "On unexceptional.net," Robert Nideffer. (Read after playing unexceptional.net.)

To play:

  • Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Jordan Mechner, Ubisoft (2003). The XBox version will be available to play in the lab. If playing outside the lab, be sure to play a console version (i.e., XBox, GameCube, PlayStation). Play to at least the 7% save point (\#3).
  • Façade, Michael Mateas, Andrew Stern (2005). This will be installed Computer Game Studies (Grad) Fall 2006 [3] in the lab, and can also be downloaded for Mac or PC (if you have a fast machine). Play through at least three times.
  • The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Ken Rolston, et al, Bethesda (2006). The XBox version will be available to play in the lab. If studying outside the lab, this title is available for the XBox 360 and Windows.
  • unexceptional.net, Robert Nideffer (pre-release, so please note any errors/problems for developer feedback).

8 November Seminar meeting: Agenda items. Discuss readings and games. Student paper/project abstracts and student-selected readings/games due.

To read:

  • Persuasive Games, Ian Bogost. (Excerpt from forthcoming book.)
  • First Person: Critical Simulation (essays by Simon Penny, Gonzalo Frasca, and Phoebe Sengers).

To play:

  • Civilization, Sid Meier with Bruce Shelley, MicroProse (1991). This will be installed in the lab, to be run with DOSBox. You can also (as of this writing) buy a copy for $5 at CDAccess. Ignore the installation program, and just copy the "CIV" directory onto your drive. The CIV.EXE program does the trick.
  • The Sims, Will Wright, Maxis (2000). This will be installed in the lab. If studying outside the lab, make sure to use the original for Mac or Windows (not The Sims II or a console/handheld version).
  • September 12th: A Toy World, Gonzalo Frasca, Newsgaming (2003). This can be played on a web page.
  • Disaffected!, Ian Bogost, Persuasive Games (2006). This will be installed in the lab, and can also be downloaded for Mac or Windows.

15 November Seminar meeting: Guest speaker: Jingle (Ge Jin) who will discuss his ongoing research with Chinese MMO gold farmers. Agenda items.

Discuss readings and games.

To read:

  • Play Between Worlds (the whole book).
  • "A Network of Quests in World of Warcraft," Jill Walker.

To play:

  • World of Warcraft, Robert Pardo, Allen Adham, et al, Blizzard (2004). The software is installed on the lab computers, and we will use 10-day trial accounts to play (you can buy the game to continue!). Start a new dwarf or gnome character (so that you begin in Coldridge Valley) and play at least through level five. Successfully complete the 4-stage Troll Cave quest -- at least the first time hanging back to wait for another player to go through with you, "buffing" the other player if you are able, etc.

20 November Seminar meeting: Rescheduled for Monday the 20th, from 6-9pm, in our normal room. Agenda items. Discuss readings and games. Discuss upcoming presentations.

To read:

  • First four pieces in Games and Culture special issue on World of Warcraft (Krzywinska & Lowood\'s introduction, Ducheneaut et al, Taylor, Williams et al). The full text should be available via UC-eLinks from an on-campus computer or via the library\'s proxy.

To play:

  • Second Life. It\'s free, but not installed in our lab. Hopefully you can join Jonathan\'s guided tour, but at least spend an hour looking around and experimenting.

29 November Seminar meeting: Paper/project presentations: Chris K, ... Discussion of presentations and texts/games.


To read:

  • Final three pieces in Games and Culture special issue on World of Warcraft (Lowood, Krzywinska, and Mortensen). The full text should be available via UC-eLinks.

To play:

  • EVE Online via the 14-day trial. Again, this isn\'t installed on the lab machines, but is free. Chris will offer us some initial pointers, and then spend at least an hour delving in yourself.

6 December Seminar meeting: Paper/project presentations Discussion of presentations and texts/games.

To read: TBA

To play: TBA

9 December All final papers/projects due (one grade penalty per day late).



Course Materials & Facilities Used

Here you can link to and/or describe books and other materials you used for this course. Feel free to create new pages for each item here if a page for it does not yet exist.

Books

Other materials

Atari Flashback 2 game system. Because you will need to play some of these games with a partner, arranging to share this purchase with another student should be possible.

Assessment materials

Paper or project. Each student will complete either a substantial scholarly paper in the game studies domain (at least 3,000 words, at least 15 scholarly references) or work on a substantial media project in this area (e.g., a game informed by theoretical work in game studies, a documentary film about an aspect of game culture, etc.). Papers must be completed this term, while projects must show substantial progress and be written up in a short, reflective paper. I will work with students who hope to submit to DiGRA 2007, World Building, the SIGGRAPH art gallery (which will be in San Diego), or other venues to make sure that my feedback on their work helps toward the submission. Initial paper/project abstracts are due at our 8th November course meeting, and final paper/projects are due 9th December (with a one grade penalty for each day late after the 9th). The paper or project constitutes 40% of the final grade.

Related selection and presentation. Two or three of our seminar meetings will be set aside for student presentations and discussion (depending on seminar size). Each presentation will involve ~15 minutes of prepared presentation (conference-style, with slides and/or other media support) followed by discussion. The presentation constitutes 30% of the final grade.


Analysis of learning methods

What worked

Please discuss what techniques worked well


What didn't work

Please discuss what techniques didn’t work as well as you had hoped


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