Learning through Game Design

In this module, we’ll introduce you to the art and practice of digital game design – focusing on the questions: What and how do people learn through game design? And how do game design practices support 21st Century literacies, computational thinking and critical orientations to creative making? And how might we think digital games, and game making, outside the box – including critical orientations to digital games and media art making (including Mary Flanagan’s ‘Values at Play’ model for game production).

As you play the module, professor Jennifer Jenson and Dr. Emily Flynn-Jones will guide you through the why’s and how’s of learning through making digital games.

Learning through Game Design invites you engage critical theories and game-design practices; engage models, artist case studies, and software tutorials; and to create a video game using tools like RPG-Maker, Twine, and Game-Maker Studio. In addition you can use our Ideation Card deck (MakeMe) to think differently about designing games.

Click here to see a visual graphic for module contents and play-flow leading to suggested applications.