Topics in Interdisciplinary Multi-Media Research

- Winter 2010 - Jan. 11 2010 - April 30, 2010

Course website: fina.minkhollow.ca [you are here.]
Instructor: Katrin Becker, Ph.D.

Mon-Wed 1:00-2:15 in AB 641
Detailed Course Outline

This course is intended for senior students, from any discipline, who are interested in exploring the design of digital games. No programming experience is required, and both 'gamers' and non-gamers are welcome. An interest in design and in learning more about digital games as a medium for expression and communication is assumed.

There really isn't anything else like this course on campus. There is a course in Game Development offered by the Computer Science Department, but it is only open to CS majors and is primarily about game programming rather than design. There are links to game design courses at other institutions here.

Resources and tools in this course will include:

Required text(s):

Tracy Fullerton

Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games

ISBN 0240809742

1. Selected readings from other books as referenced.
2. Links to various online articles and papers. Public resources will be linked from this site and those being shared via ”Fair Use” policy will be available through Moodle.
3. Links to various online resources we will explore in class.

1. Access to computer and Internet
2. A UofC computer system user account
3. A Google (gmail) Account
4. An internet browser per UofC guidelines - Firefox is recommended (this website does not always display nicely in IE).
5. A Google Docs Space. You are welcome to keep your documents and presentations here. Note the size limitations.
6. Microsoft Office Suite (PowerPoint and Word) ~OR~ Open Office Note: You may not need either of these if you use Google Docs for everything.
7. Membership in the Wiggio Group FINA507
8. A copy of GameMaker 7.0 (free to download)

NOTE: It will be assumed that you check your email on a regular basis. Any correspondence sent to your UofC email account is considered 'official' with respect to announcements and other course-related news. For the purposes of this class, we will also consider gmail to be an official means of communication. For instructions on how to forward email from one account to another, see the UofC Email Forwarding Page.

Please check that the email account associated with your BlackBoard profile is your UofC account. If you provided an off-campus email address when you registered at UofC, your BlackBoard account may have been set up with that one. If so, please change it (instructions are provided on the UofC Update Email Info Page)

I figured most students will already know how to use BlackBoard, so getting you to use a wiki & other formats like Facebook exposes you to other ways to effect online collaboration. There are now a great many different wiki systems available. Many are free, many offer space for their users. I have chosen to use DokuWiki for the public website portion of the course for several reasons:

1. it does NOT require a database or SQL. It uses what are called flat files. That means that the data for the wiki pages are stored in files that are plain text. This makes them easy to modify as well as transfer, back-up, and translate into other kinds of documents.
2. it is small
3. again, because of the flat file data, I can easily work with a local copy even when the internet is unavailable.
4. I find the formatting fairly easy to learn (much of it matches the defacto wiki standard as used by most of the more popular wikis)
5. the style-sheets and php files are relatively easy to understand and modify if you know a bit about CSS and PHP

I do not expect you to agree with my preference, but learning the basics of making wikis and wiki pages will be similar no matter what wiki you use. Learning enough about this one to be able to add content will give you enough experience to allow you to try using others.

• If you wish to post comments on the public website, you will have to register. Here is the link for information about activating your account: Step by step guide to registration
  

Blackboard may be used to record grades for students in this class.

• To access your course, use one of the following approaches:

Logging in Through MyUofC	Logging in Directly

* To log on to Blackboard, you MUST use your U of Calgary account username and password (free to all students). Here is the URL for information about activating your account: https://my.ucalgary.ca/portaldocs/html/docs/main.html

The location for quizzes and access to some other course content will be via the Moodle course management system (serves the same purpose as BlackBoard, but it is open source).

• To access your course, go to: http://moodle.minkhollow.ca/
• You should already have an account (it will be the same as your UofC account). If you don't, please register on the site.
• Please be sure to change your password.