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Game Design, Story-Telling and Society: an Interdisciplinary Hackaton

Vak
2017-2018

Admission requirements

All students will have followed the Introduction Story-Telling for Beginners, or an introductory course in narratology (Faculty of Humanities); all students must have obtained a basic grasp of programming, either by successfully following the Introduction Game Making for Beginners, or by following a relevant MOOC. In the last case, students will be asked to take a local entrance test.

Description

This intensive course brings together students from the humanities, social sciences and sciences to collectively create a computer game in which story-telling plays a crucial part. In the weeks before the actual hackaton, interdisciplinary groups of students will prepare themselves by creating a simple interactive fictional text, and rebuild a simple existing computer game. The hackaton itself will build on this experience. During one full week, students will work full time in teams to create a workable computer game from scratch (with the help of Game Maker). The challenge will be to design a game in which narrative and game-play are closely intertwined. In addition, the students will be able to explain the (rhetorical, affective) effect they wanted the game to accomplish, and to reflect on the measure in which this aim is accomplished. The quality of the collaboration and the ideas expressed in the design is as important as the quality of the end result. Master students will write a portfolio in which they offer an extensive reflection on the problems they encountered during the working process, the solutions found, the quality of collaboration, their decisions concerning story-telling, and the social and cultural values that inform their design.

Course objectives

After this course, students have obtained

  • the ability to create, in a team, in a very short time, a working computer game;

  • the ability to create a satisfactory narrative, that is well balanced with satisfactory gameplay;

  • the ability to critically reflect on the social and cultural dimensions of their self-produced game;

  • the ability to critically reflect on their own working process, and their collaboration;

  • the game making abilities that will help them develop in a well-informed computer game critic, with a better understanding of the technological aspects of the medium.

Timetable

The timetable is available on the website.

Mode of instruction

Intensive working groups, team work.

Course Load

Course Load: 280 Hours
Lectures: 26 Hours
Course Preparation: 254 Hours

Assessment method

Level 300: Working computer game with good balance story-gameplay 60%; short reflection 30%; collaboration 10%.
Level 500: Working computer game with good balance story-gameplay 50%; extended reflection 40%; collaboration 10%.

Resit

A resit is offered for all assignments.

Exam review

How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.

Blackboard

Blackboard will be used to provide students with additional information/reading material.

Reading list

N,a,

Registration

Enrolment through uSis for classes, exams and final papers is mandatory.

Contact information

For questions about the content of the course, you can contact the teacher

M.A. Gómez Maureira MSc Prof.dr. S. Lammes
Ellis Bartholomeus

Student administration: Van Wijkplaats
Coordinator of studies: ms. drs. E.M.T.Poolman

Remarks

For more information please check the website of the study program Film and Literature Studies