Pre-Class Preparation
Why study board/card games?

Readings:

• Greg Costikyan, "Don't Be a Vidiot: What Computer Game Designers Can Learn From Non-Electronic Games"
• Ludica, "The Hegemony of Play"
  

Also: Boardgame News and BoardGameGeek may prove to be useful sources of inspiration as you begin to brainstorm and build your games.

September 7 - Power Grid
Eurogames vs Ameritrash, Uncertainty, Randomness

Readings:

• Power Grid rules
  
  
• Jorg Bewersdorff, Luck, Logic, and White Lies: The Mathematics of Games, Preface & Chapter 8
  
• Mark Rosewater, "Kind Acts of Randomness"
• Fortress: Ameritrash on the term "Ameritrash"
• Various perspectives on "Eurogames" (here, here)

Other games to try: Modern Art, Puerto Rico, El Grande

September 14 - Mafia (aka Werewolf)
Paranoia Games, Player Elimination

Readings:

• Mafia/Werewolf rules and variants
• Dimitry Davidoff's original ruleset
  
  
• Stewart Woods, "Last Man Standing: Risk and Elimination in Social Game Play"
• Margaret Robertson, "Werewolf, or why playing games can give you hairy palms"

Optional Readings:

• For ideas on how computer mediation might change the game, see Doug's forum variants (ex. here, here), and also mafiascum.net
  

Other games to try: Bang!, Shadows Over Camelot, Battlestar Galactica

September 21 - Magic: The Gathering
Collectible Card Games, Player Creativity

Game idea pitches! Then form groups (email Doug + Miguel by 11:59 pm)

Readings:

• M:tG basic rules (also browse the comprehensive rules, just for a brief taste)
  
  
• Richard Garfield, "The Design Evolution of Magic: the Gathering" (featured in Tracy Fullerton's Game Design Workshop)
• Mark Rosewater, "When Cards Go Bad"
• David Sirlin's response to Rosewater, "Wheat from the Chaff" (from a longer essay, here)
• Dave Hickey, "The Heresy of Zone Defense", Air Guitar

Optional Readings:

• Contrast the Richard Garfield piece with more contemporary M:tG design concerns: Mark Rosewater, "State of Design 2009"
• A glimpse into the crazy world of card errata and rule ambiguities: Stephen Menendian, "Deus Ex Errata: Debating the Changes to Time Vault"
• Some fun examples of creative deck construction: Land-only decks, "Trix", "Getting Stuffy in Here"... and Doug's personal favorite, Shahrazad sub-game madness

Other games to try: Cosmic Encounter, Kongai

September 28 - War on Terror: the Boardgame
Game Rhetoric, Political Gameplay, Intentionally Broken (or Incomplete) Games

Readings:

• War on Terror rules
  
  
• Stewart Woods, "Playing With An Other: Ethics in the Magic Circle"
• Ian Bogost, Persuasive Games, Chapter 2
• Andrew Fluegelman (ed.), The New Games Book, "It Began with World War IV"

Optional Readings:

• On LARPs and activism: S. Jonsson et al., "Five Weeks of Rebellion: Designing Momentum"
  
  

Other games to try: Crunch, The Collectible Business Card Game

October 5 - Pandemic
Cooperative Games

Readings:

• Pandemic rules
  
  
• Matt Leacock's Google Tech Talk on designing Pandemic
• J. Zagal et al., "Collaborative games: Lessons learned from board games"
• Jonas Heide Smith, Plans and Purposes: How Video Games Shape Player Behavior, Chapter 3, "Sum and Conflict" (pg. 89-100)
  
  

Other games to try: Arkham Horror, Reiner Knizia's Lord of the Rings

October 12
Fall Break! No class.

October 19
Playtest #1, Session #1

October 26
Playtest #1, Session #2

November 2 - Space Alert!
Mixed Media Games

Readings:

• Space Alert! Handbook and Rulebook

Optional Readings:

• Anders Tychsen & Nicholas Pagden - "Making Magic! The effects of enhancing PnP RPGs with computing technology"

Related games: assorted VCR games

November 9 - The Upgrade!
Experimental Roleplaying Games

Readings:

• The Upgrade! player manual
  
  
• Markus Montola - "The Invisible Rules of Role-Playing The Social Framework of Role-Playing Process"
• Joris Dormans - "On the Role of the Die: A brief ludologic study of pen-and-paper roleplaying games and their rules"

Optional Readings:

• Markus Montola - "Tangible Pleasures of Pervasive Role-Playing"

Other games to try: Paranoia XP

November 16
Playtest #2, Session #1

November 23
Playtest #2, Session #2

November 30
Playtest #2, Session #3

SESSION POSTPONED - Paradise Hotel
Reality Television

Readings:

• Su Holmes - "But This Time You Choose!: Approaching the ‘interactive’ audience in reality TV"
• Minna Aslama & Mervi Pantti - "Talking Alone: Reality TV, Emotions and Authenticity"