This week features a special bonus lecture, The Human Element in Game Design, Part V (Critics). This includes every editor who will ham-handedly alter your brilliance, every boss who thinks the soup won't taste right until they pee in it, plus the reviewers both "professional" and amateur.
Also note that your Graded Course Project is due during this week's class.
Blog: How To Use And Abuse The Gaming Press And How The Gaming Press Wants To Use and Abuse You by Kieron Gillen
As a former game review editor for the British PC Gamer magazine, this blog entry, while long, provides a big payoff at the end for those who want to get their game noticed by the hobby press. These "confessions of mad editor" are great stuff.
Website: Getting Your Boardgame Published by discovergames.com
This is an excellent resource directory page if you would like to see your Graded Course Project actually published or ever thought about going into the tabletop side of the business. In particular, investigate the Game & Toy Manufacturers Guide.
Article: Quarter to Three Interview with Alan Emrich
This is a serious interview that received some very flippant answers ― answers that you will do well to remember as you quest toward employment in the industry as a game designer. (Don't say I never warned you what it would be like out there.)
Article: Breaking the Rules by Ernest Adams
As a game designer you have to be very sensitive to what your audience will and won't put up with. It's not credibility; most computer games aren't remotely credible. I can only describe it in terms of its opposite: when a game doesn't have it, its players frequently yell "Bull!" at the screen and throw down the controller. This is a good closing story to our class.
This supplemental link is worth pursuing only if you wish to really learn the subject matter of game design in the broadest possible sense. Read this only if you're serious about being a game designer and delving deeply into the subject of game design art, craft, and science, here's some more lessons from others who have also "been there."
Article: Stumbles, Bumbles, and Tribulations by Chad Ellis
This insightful, reflective article tells you how to deal with the problems that critics point out in your game.
Article: Hiring Game Designers by Arnold Hendrick
If you want a job as a game designer, here are the kinds of things that they're looking for.
Article: Designer's Notebook: Inside a Game Design Company by Ernest Adams
There are many freelance designers and writers, and many subcontractors for things like art and audio, but there are only one or two companies in the world that specialize in design and scripting. In this column, Ernest talks to Chris Bateman, the founder of International Hobo, to find out how the company works.
Article: So, You Want to be a Game Designer? by Ed Bartlett
This is another point-of-view on what it takes to become a game designer. If nothing else, it will reassure you that you're doing the right thing going to this school and taking this class.
Article: Pitfalls of the Working Game Designer by Michael Fitch
What happens when you fail to define the design? Find out with a quick click-through of this fascinating presentation. Well worth a look!
Bibliography: General Course References
With the class winding down, you may wish to take a moment and contribute some information to those students who will follow you in my class.
Web Site: Rate My Professors for Alan Emrich
Just look me up under "Emrich, Alan" and, if you feel strongly about it, leave a rating so that those students who will follow you have some idea what to expect from the courses taught by yours truly.
This is the game that we played and analyzed in class this week. If you want more information about it, see the link below or click on the game box illustration:
TWILIGHT
IMPERIUM 3rd EDITION is, hand's down, the ultimate classroom
laboratory game. It has just about everything you could ever design in a game
packed inside, include an economic model, a combat system,
trade, diplomacy, random events, special powers, research & technology, plus
an expansion kit is also included inside with great additional material. The beauty is
that each of these systems has been kept simple so that the game remains
playable!
The rules are brilliantly organized and colorfully presented, the components are top quality and, with a randomly-generated map, every game presents its own unique strategic situations.
Look, it's a long game, and I know we didn't have time to finish it in class, but if you want to see so many of the lessons in class applied to a single game, then this is the one to get. It's not cheap, either, at $80 suggested retail, but there is much more value than that inside the box.
Playable by three to six players, Twilight Imperium 3 takes about three to five hours to play. Everything you need to play is included in the game:
For additional information about Twilight Imperium 3, including a link to a very large, color packed .pdf file of the rules, click here.
