Lower-Division

Explores the ways in which aesthetic designs in art and media influence, make, and convey meaning, and presents methods for designing, authoring and implementing aesthetic components into games and interactive artworks. Students investigate these topics from a conceptual starting point that branches into cultural, technological and/or interventionist inquiries, culminating in a series of creative design projects.

Games are an ancient art form that many people experience everyday. They can be used to bring audiences into imaginary worlds of play, and invite them to engage with the most critical problems facing the world. This course is a core course in the art and design: games and playable media major, and teaches students about the way we conceive of games, as more than products, as a genre of art, and a form of social engagement. Students are introduced to game studies scholars and game design texts, which allow them to start making analog games and interactive artworks.

Games are art forms that are widely accessed across a multitude of modern social, cultural, political, and media landscapes. Many games—from ancient to contemporary—express compelling sociopolitical perspectives and critiques. This course explores games as art with a focus on works that intentionally invite social action and change through performance, play, or participation. Games are discussed from critical, artistic, and aesthetic frameworks. Creative assignments and projects are used to explore methods and approaches for creating expressive games and other forms of radical play.

How can art make change? How can changing culture contribute to broader movements for social change? How can artists make games that move culture and society? Course approaches games as a site for political expression and social change. Looks at game makers who identify as feminist, queer, disabled, Black, Indigenous, people of color, workers, radicals, artists, scholars, and/or activists who are using games to drive social commentary, critical play, and political action. By the end of this course, students have a strong understanding of games as a political medium as demonstrated by the design of their own cultural intervention using games and play.

Builds skills in setting experiential goals and in defining and building mechanical and dynamic elements to support those goals. Through an iterative and reflective process, explores how we evaluate success as designers and artists, and the responsibilities we have to ourselves and to our audience. In this class, students will rapidly prototype interactive experiences in a number of forms and practice the presentation/positioning of their work to an audience.

Foundational course in game design. Re-introduces students to play as an expressive form that extends across many mediums of cultural expression and communication. Students study, experience, and design playful performance and interactive experiments, culminating in a final Playfaire, where, as a collective, they practice community organizing and reciprocity with the needs of individuals to create space for cross-disciplinary play. Course continues the long tradition of play using figures such as the jester and the clown to call into question social norms and power structures. Students also engage in critiques which may involve difficult conversations, but result in more powerful artworks. (Formerly offered as ARTG 80I, Foundations of Play.)

Survey of the basics of visual communication and interaction design, focusing on communicating designs of interactive systems. Covers techniques from a breadth of visual communication traditions; how to choose, use, and innovate; and how to structure dialogue around them.

Surveys the history of digital games from open university games through the home console, PC, and contemporary platforms, and on to indie and art games. Throughout, the course locates connections between technology, marketing, and play culture. (Formerly History of Digital Games.)

Project-centered studio-lecture hybrid course that introduces the process of world-building and interaction design from the standpoint of the art director. Each project addresses a milestone in the art direction development pipeline, and demonstrates corresponding entry-level technical and conceptual skills and strategies. Utilizing this split methodology, the big-picture game development process is presented in tandem with related fundamental digital art and design skills at an achievable scale for an introductory course.