This class will explore how games can be imaginative tools for social change. We'll focus on exploring ideas of social change through tabletop roleplaying games and video games, but we'll also be exploring these ideas through select prose. Each week, students will engage with reading/games through seminar, focusing on the ways in which craft produces audience experience. As part of this, students will be playing and designing a quarter-long game (inspired by Ken Eklund's World Without Oil), wherein they "live" and act in game-world each week and use it as a transformative space for community-building. The final project will be collaborative, with the students developing mechanics, history, characters, and artifacts for this world. No previous gaming experience required.
Anticipated Credit Equivalencies:
4 - Game Design
4 - Creative Writing
Registration
Academic Details
Game design, creative writing, community-organizing