Game Design II

Wow! So I just had my first session with this class today, and I have to say it was awesome.

The course is run as if the class were a developing team, and the two instructors are the publishers. We are going to be graded at four milestones on how we have performed and whether we have reached our deadlines. This parodies how real development teams work; their publisher sets a milestone, at which time the developer shows what work they have accomplished, and if the publisher is satisfied they will continue to pay the developer for the next step of the process.

There are about 10-11 of us right now in the class, all of us with varying degress of skill and different areas of expertise. I've been pulled in for my writing/storytelling skills, my basic knowledge of the spanish language (much of the game is in spanish), and for general design and creativity.

The class is four hours long, but it went by so fast I wished it was longer. I repeat: I had a four hour course, no break, and I wanted it to be LONGER. For the vast majority of the class we just sat around in a computer lab giving progress reports, throwing ideas around and developing what we had started with. I caught on to what the project was pretty quickly, so it wasn't a problem that I joined late. I actually started to give my input and some new ideas within the first hour. I proposed a relationship meter for in the game, similar to what to the relationships with the gods in the upcoming title Rise of the Argonauts. I also helped out a bit with the story and believability of the game.

The idea of the game is pretty cool. On the most basic level, its an educational game designed to teach spanish. But that makes it sound lame, which it is not. It is a new type of educational game, called an immersive learning game. This means that gameplay and entertainment value are still high priorities, so it doesn't become a text-based or multiple-choice "game." The game will run on Source, Half-Life's engine, it will be played with Wii-motes and involve the appropriately silly Wii actions, and will utilize a brand-new virtual reality style mechanic.

This is going to be one kick-ass spanish learning game.

- Scott