##Calendar ###Part I: Fun, Play, and Games
Tuesday, January 24
- What is fun? What is play? What are games? What are videogames?
Thursday, January 26
- Roger Caillois, Man, Play, and Games, pp. 1-35 (Blackboard)
Tuesday, January 31
- Week 2 Roles: First Readers (Team 1); In-Class Hosts (Team 2); Respondents (Team 3); Seekers (Team 4)
- Alexander Galloway, Gamic Action, Four Moments, from Gaming, pp. 1-38
- To Play: Upgrade Complete
- In class: 24: The Game (Cut Scenes), Metal Gear Solid, Eternal Darkness (and this)
Thursday, February 2
- Espen Aarseth, Genre Trouble: Narrativism and the Art of Simulation, from First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan
- Markuu Eskelinen, The Gaming Situation, Game Studies 1.1 (2001)
- To Play: Tetris and Echo Bazaar
- In class: First Person Tetris and Calabouo Ttrico
###Part II :: Histories and Archaeologies
Tuesday, February 7
- Week 3 Roles: First Readers (Team 2); In-Class Hosts (Team 3); Respondents (Team 4); Seekers (Team 5)
- Stephen Kline et al., Origins of an Industry, from Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing, pp. 84-108 (Blackboard)
- To Play: Space Invaders and Asteroids
Thursday, February 9
- Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort, Combat, from Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System, pp. 19-42 (Blackboard)
- To Play: Combat (See the Instructions on using Stella in order to play Combat) as well as the Arcade Pac-Man, the Atari Pac-Man, and the NES Pac-Man
Tuesday, February 14
- Week 4 Roles: First Readers (Team 3); In-Class Hosts (Team 4); Respondents (Team 5); Seekers (Team 1)
- Joel Johnson, 1 Million Workers. 90 Million iPhones. 17 Suicides. Whos to Blame? from Wired
- Mark Sample, What Comes before the Platform: The Refuse of Videogames, from Play the Past
- Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory, from This American Life, episode 454
- To Play: Phone Story
- Platform Studies Inquiry Assigned
Thursday, February 16
- Stephen Kline et al., Electronic Frontiers, from Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing, pp. 109-127 (Blackboard)
- To Play: Super Mario Bros 3
###Part III :: Game Forms
Tuesday, February 21
- Mark J.P. Wolf, Inventing Space: Toward a Taxonomy of On- and Off-screen Space in Video Games. Film Quarterly 51.1 (1997): 11-23
- Jesper Juul, Introduction to Game Time, First Person, available online <jesperjuul.net/text/timetoplay/>
Thursday, February 23
- Live tweeting Exercises in Style
- Platform Studies Inquiry Due on Blackboard
Tuesday, February 28
- Week 6 Roles: First Readers (Team 4); In-Class Hosts (Team 5); Respondents (Team 1); Seekers (Team 2)
- Zack Whalen, Play Along an Approach to Videogame Music, Game Studies 4.1 (2004)
- Karen Collins, excerpt from Game Sound, MIT Press, 2008 (Blackboard)
Thursday, March 1
- Galloway, Origins of the First-Person Shooter, from Gaming, pp. 39-69
- To Play: BattleZone <www.atariage.com/software_page.html?SoftwareID=859> and Quake <www.quakelive.com/>
Tuesday, March 6
- Week 7 Roles: First Readers (Team 5); In-Class Hosts (Team 1); Respondents (Team 2); Seekers (Team 3)
- Jesper Juul, A Casual Revolution, chapter 2 (Blackboard)
- To Play: Selection of casual games: Flow, You Have to Burn the Rope, Small Worlds, Torture Game 2 (Warning: Very Graphic and Disturbing!!!)
Thursday, March 8
- Galloway, Social Realism from Gaming, pp. 70-84
March 13/15 (spring break) (Week Eight)
###Part IV :: Doing Things
Tuesday, March 20 (Week 9)
- Week 9 Roles: First Readers (Team 1); In-Class Hosts (Team 2); Respondents (Team 3); Seekers (Team 4)
- Ian Bogost, How to Do Things with Videogames, Introduction and chapters 1-5, pp. 1-44
- To Play: Passage, I Wish I Were the Moon, Darfur is Dying, Syoban Action
Thursday, March 22
- Bogost, How to Do Things with Videogames, chapters 6-10, pp. 45-76
- To Play: Budget Puzzle and Subservient Chicken (these are directly related to the reading from Bogost)
- To Play and Tweet: Once Upon a Spacetime, Dys4ia, Unmanned, ImmorTall, Stop Disasters!, Spent (At least two tweets for each game: (1) critical reaction to game itself and (2) what affect or effect could game be used for; what could the game do?)
Tuesday, March 27 (Week 10)
- Week 10 roles Roles: First Readers (Team 2); In-Class Hosts (Team 3); Respondents (Team 4); Seekers (Team 5)
- Bogost, How to Do Things with Videogames, chapters 11-15, pp. 77-109
- To Play: Rainmaker, It Takes Two, Cloud, Flow, September 12th
Thursday, March 29
- Bogost, How to Do Things with Videogames, chapters 16-20 and Conclusion, pp. 110-154
Tuesday, April 3 (Week 11)
- Week 11 Roles: First Readers (Team 3); In-Class Hosts (Team 4); Respondents (Team 5); Seekers (Team 1)
- Gonzalo Frasco, Videogames of the Oppressed, from First Person, available online <electronicbookreview.com/thread/firstperson/Boalian>
- Joost Raessens, Reality Play: Documentary Computer Games Beyond Fact and Fiction, Popular Communication 4.3 (2006): 213-224.
- To Play: Flight to Freedom In class: Columbine RPG and JFK Reloaded
Thursday, April 5
- Galloway, Countergaming, from Gaming, pp. 107-126
- See the Detailed Instructions for the days playing
Tuesday, April 10 (Week 12)
- Portal (Available on Steam for $9.99 for Macs and PCs)
Thursday, April 12
- More Portal
- How to Do Things with Videogames Missing Chapter Due
Tuesday, April 17 (Week 13)
- Writing for Games Conference
- Blogging: Group 1 and Group 2 post highlights of the conference sessions they attended
Thursday, April 19
- Blogging: Group 5 post about interactive fiction
- Nick Montforts video introduction to Interactive Fiction
- Nick Montfort, Toward a Theory of Interactive Fiction
- Interactive Fiction Instructions
- To Play: Aisle, Bronze, and Shade
###Part V :: Designing Games
Tuesday, April 24 (Week 14)
- Game Design Workshop
- Due in class: 1-paragraph pitch for your final game design project
Thursday, April 26
- Game Design Tools
Tuesday, May 1 (Week 15)
- Game Design Demos
Thursday, May 3
- Game Design Demos
Saturday, May 5
- Final Projects Due