SIGN 26038/ ENGL 12320/ MAAD 12320/CMST 25945/GNSE 22320 Instructor: Patrick Jagoda (pjagoda@uchicago.edu)
CA: Brion Drake (bdrake@uchicago.edu)
CA: Bret Hart (bkhart@uchicago.edu)
CA: Michael Stablein, Jr. (mstableinjr@uchicago.edu)
Course Meeting Time: Tuesday and Thursday 11:00am-12:20pm
Course Location: Cochrane-Woods Art Ctr 157
TA Section 1: Friday 10:30am-11:20am (Crerar Library 134): Michael Stablein, Jr.
TA Section 2: Friday 11:30am-12:20pm (Crerar Library 134): Brion Drake
TA Section 3: Friday 12:30pm-1:20pm (Crerar Library 134): Bret Hart
Patrick Jagoda Office Hours: Tuesday 12:30pm-2:30pm (Weston Game Lab Studio)
Brion Drake Office Hours: Friday 12:30-1:30pm (MADD Center Commons)
Bret Hart Office Hours: Friday 1:30-2:30pm (MADD Center Commons)
Michael Stablein, Jr. Office Hours: Friday 11:30-12:30pm (MADD Center Commons)
Office hours may additionally be available by appointment or via Zoom for all instructors and Course Assistants.
Since the 1960s, games have blossomed into the world’s most profitable artistic and cultural form. This course attends to a key elements of video games, including genres, mechanics, narrative, space, objectives, difficulty, and failure. While the quarter is organized by formal qualities of games, particular games have been selected to invite thought about historical, cultural, and sociopolitical dimensions of games. Readings by theorists will help us think about the field of videogame studies. In addition to weekly reading and a series of short exercises (designed to practice different modes of writing and creative development), students will also participate in a final collaborative group project in which they design a game on a shared theme. This is a 2022-23 Signature Course in the College.
MATERIALS TO PURCHASE OR ACCESS
Most game should be available for multiple platforms (PC/Mac via Steam or on various consoles). Unless otherwise specified, you should feel free to play on the platform of your choice (differences among consoles may add depth to our group discussions).
Many games will also be available for free use during the course via the Weston Game Lab. You will be able to access most games for the course via our course Canvas page. In fact, the only games you will have to purchase are Mountain (Mac, PC), We Are Chicago (Mac, PC), There Is No Game (Mac though PC is free), and Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe (Platform of Choice). One game, Hades (Platform of Choice), can be purchased, but there will be other free options that day.
For students with Macs, a few games are PC-only or require a console. This is true for both Doom (PC) and Monster Train (PC or console), but different Mac game choices are available on these days.
All readings that are not already linked via this syllabus are also available via Canvas.
COMMUNICATION PLATFORMS
Discord: We will use Discord for ongoing conversations with both shared channels for informal conversations about games and private channels for communication with the instructor and CAs. For all course related questions, you should contact me or the CAs via Discord INSTEAD of email.
Course Website: We will use the course WordPress website to access the syllabus (with links) and to post blog entries. The blog will be publicly available.
Canvas: We will only use Canvas to access video games and PDFs of shared course readings. You will have to log into Canvas, using your CNetID.
