Schedule of Work for Spring 2018

7I. Beginning to Spring Break (3/12) II. March 19th to End III. Exams

I.

wk	unit	Readings / Lectures / Discussions	demos	Notes
1/22	welcome!	Platform and possibility: Breakout + Pong First person vs. third person perspective: Frogger + MarioKart 8		Can’t find something? Check the course archive on Moodle.
1/29	Platform & Interface	Platform Studies readings (Ian Bogost & Nick Montfort) Itch.io exploration Redshift & Portalmetal, micha cárdenas	Frogger Ohmygod are you alright?, Anna Anthropy Cat Simulator 3000, Emma Winston	Can’t find something? Check the course archive on Moodle.
2/5	Critical Play	“Introduction to Critical Play,” Mary Flanagan, Critical Play: Radical Game Design “No Fun: The Queer Potential of Video Games that Annoy, Anger, Disappoint, Sadden, and Hurt,” Bonnie Ruberg Run, Lola, Run, dir. Tom Twyker (film)		Recommended: “Playing Outside,” Leigh Alexander “Persuasive Games: Exploitationware,” Ian Bogost
2/12	Worldmaking	Papers Please, Lucas Pope [iOS, Steam] Grayscale, ICE Lab @ MIT [browser] Choose one from “Class Readings” at Values at Play dot org	Queers in Love at the End of the World, Anna Anthropy Killing Me Softly, Fobazi M. Ettarh	Recommended: “Games That Heal,” Soha Kareem Layoff [browser]
2/12	Worldmaking		{Begin Twine projects}
2/19	Forks	“Garden of the Forking Paths,” Jorge Luis Borges “The Library of Babel,” Jorge Luis Borges Begin one “Choose Your Own Adventure” novel (TBA) Choose one: The Stanley Parable [Mac/PC] Undertale [Mac/PC, PS4] or The Last of Us [PS4, PS3]		Exam 1 2/18
2/19	Forks			Recommended: Library of Babel, Jonathan Basile “Virtual Library of Babel Makes Borges’s…”, Allison Flood
2/26	Platform II: Mediation	Edge of Tomorrow, dir. Liman (film) All You Need is Kill, Vols. I & II, adapted by Ryosuke Takeuchi Excerpt from All You Need is Kill, Hiroshi Sakurazaka (in class)		Twine projects due 2/27 view drafts
3/5	Narrative vs. Story	Choose one: Pry Blackbar [google play/apple store] Gone Home	Your Lover Has Turned into a Flock of Birds, Mira Simon Braiding, Braiding, Nontsikelelo Mutiti	Exam 2 3/4
3/12	Digital Humanities / Media Studies	Gaming, Essays on Algorithmic Culture, Alexander Galloway (chapters 1 & 2) “The Sound of Terror: Phenomenology of a Drone Strike,” Nasser Hussain “Dead Reckoning: Aerial Perception and the Social Construction of Targets,” Caren Kaplan w/ design by Raegan Kelly “Shooting to Kill: Headshots, Twitch Reflexes, and the Mechropolitics of Video Games,” Amanda Phillips	Spring Break!
3/12	Digital Humanities / Media Studies		{Begin playing with Stencyl}	Recommended: John Cayley, “The Listener’s” + Alexa Skill Twine Evaluations due 3/20

II. March 19th to End

wk	unit	Readings / Lectures / Discussions	demos	Notes
3/19	(non) Universal Designs	“QueerOS: A User’s Manual,” Fiona Barnett, Zach Blas, Micha Cárdenas, Jacob Gaboury, Jessica Marie Johnson, Margaret Rhee “The Intersectional Interface,” Miriam E. Sweeney Gameworld interfaces, Kristine Jørgensen, Ch’s. 1 & 2	Pac-Man Pac-Txt, Richard Moore	Midterm 3/25 Recommended: The Interface Effect, Alexander R. Galloway, ch 1
3/19	(non) Universal Designs		{Begin interface development}
3/26	Mediation II: Art, Lit, Games	The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway The Old Man Club, Michael Koloch “Are Video Games Art?” Kellee Santiago “Video Games Can Never Be Art,” Roger Ebert		Recommended: “Reimagining the Avatar Dream: Modeling Social Identity in Digital Media,” D. Fox Harrell & Chong-U Lim + video Mario Maker [Wii U]
4/2	Representation	“On Not Becoming Gamers: Moving Beyond the Constructed Audience,” Adrienne Shaw “Self-Saving Princess: Feminism and Post-Play Narrative Modding,” Alex Layne & Samantha Blackmon “Live in Your World, Play in Ours”: Race, Video Games, and Consuming the Other,” David Leonard Phantasmal Media, Fox Harrell (pages TBA) Tomb Raider (iOS + Android/GooglePlay)	Super Mario Brothers The Grandma Gamer
4/2	Representation		Super Mario Brothers The Grandma Gamer	Recommended: “Game analysis: Developing a methodological toolkit for the qualitative study of games,” Mia Consalvo & Nathan Dutton
4/9	AAA Paradoxes	Assassin’s Creed: Freedom Cry Assassin’s Creed: Liberation Selections from The Critical Is “Video Games Are Better Without Characters,” Ian Bogost		Interface projects due 4/10 Exam 4 4/15 Recommended: Interactivity, Indigeneity, and the Digital Imaginary, Cassandra Hradil
4/16	Platform III	Never Alone	{Begin developing spatial games} Interface trial reports due 4/17
4/23	Playing in Space	Pokemon Go World Brush The Walk “Is Pokémon Go racist? How the app may be redlining communities of color,” Allana Akhtar “Pokémon GO is changing how cities use public space, but could it be more inclusive?” Shiva Kooragayala & Tanaya Srini “Artist’s Locative Games,” Mary Flanagan in Critical Play: Radical Game Design “How’s the Weather: Simulating Weather in Virtual Environments,” Matt Barton		Exam 5 4/29
				Final Work due 5/12
			Spatial Games due 4/30
			Spatial Games due 4/30

III. Exams

		Exam Schedule
exam 0	Practice Exam	Breaksout, Pippin Barr [browser] “Pippin Barr Alludes to the Creative Possibilities of Games by Breaking Breakout,” Chris Priestman Burnt Matches, Pippin Barr [browser] “Pippin Barr’s New Game Brings Concrete Poetry to Life,” Chris Priestman	2/11
exam 1	Narrative?!	“Game Design as Narrative Architecture,” Henry Jenkins “Casual Games, Time Management, and the Work of Affect,” Aubrey Anable, “Casual Threats: The Feminization of Casual Video Games,” John Vanderhoef Two Dots [demo video] Thomas Was Alone [iOS, PS3, PS4] LIM [browser]	2/18
exam 2	Not Playing	“Do Gamers Make Better Drone Operators Than Pilots” “Drone Pilots Say Their Job Is Not Like a Video Game” Killbox [browser]	3/4
midterm	Developer Spotlight: Beth LaPensee	Thunderbird Strike [browser] Invaders [browser] Comic History of Video Games, Jonathan Hennessey “Contests for Meaning: Playing King Philip’s War in the Twenty-First Century,” Matthew Kirschenbaum “Disrupting ‘all the familiar geometry’: Drones, Settler Colonialism, and Nasser Hussain’s Difficult Questions,” Jill Stauffer	3/25
exam 4	Becoming Games	Quadrilateral Cowboy, Blendo Games Game after: a cultural study of video game afterlife, Raiford Guins (pages TBA) The Black Box Society, Frank Pasquale (pages TBA) “You had to be there” & “Future Historians Probably Won’t Understand Our Internet, and That’s Okay,” Alexis Madrigal	4/15
Exam 5	Representational Limits	“Dystopian Blackness and the Limits of Racial Empathy in The Walking Dead and The Last of Us,” TreaAndrea Russworm The Walking Dead: Michonne	4/29
Final		Revisions and Reviews	5/12