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MEDIA399 - Concepts in Gaming
- Thread starter goodcow
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*bumpitty*
Well, the course starts tomorrow, and I've finally found a syllabus! Yay!
But the course is nothing like I thought it would be, even though I don't really know what I was expecting in the first place anyway...
http://www.maryflanagan.com/courses/2005/Game/Concepts in Gaming3.doc
Comments?
Well, the course starts tomorrow, and I've finally found a syllabus! Yay!
But the course is nothing like I thought it would be, even though I don't really know what I was expecting in the first place anyway...
http://www.maryflanagan.com/courses/2005/Game/Concepts in Gaming3.doc
Comments?
I'm taking "TV and Electronic Culture" and "Imagetext" this year.
Haven't had the teacher of the first one before, but I've heard its a great class. Imagetext is a supplement to the Animation and Comics class I took last semester, taught by Donald Ault. Anyone who is deep into comic theory *might* know him, but he's fucking awesome. Too bad some bad back surgery a year ago + the painkillers he's on have screwed him up so bad.
Also Japanese Media and Pop Culture, which I took 2 years ago, was great. Yeah, it was filled with anime dorks, but the teacher is just about the smartest guy I've ever known. Just standing in the same room as him makes you smarter. He used to be a psychological interrogator in the marines. And he's just as effective now. He's like Sasha from Psychonauts or something, his mind is probably a neat and tidy cube. Kinda looks like Sasha, too.
Either way, all of the professors teaching these classes are obscenely smart and awesome people and they're setting up the vanguard to start taking gaming and comics/animation as serious study in the future. Even though modern comics have been around about as long as modern film, it still hasn't gotten its due in academia. We need teachers like this who take the subjects seriously and attack the actual theory within them.
I'm studying some weird amalgam of gaming, comics, animation, film, asia, pop culture, etc. and I don't know what the HELL I'm going to do with it, but it sure is interesting, especially since all of these things are kind of starting to merge together.
Haven't had the teacher of the first one before, but I've heard its a great class. Imagetext is a supplement to the Animation and Comics class I took last semester, taught by Donald Ault. Anyone who is deep into comic theory *might* know him, but he's fucking awesome. Too bad some bad back surgery a year ago + the painkillers he's on have screwed him up so bad.
Also Japanese Media and Pop Culture, which I took 2 years ago, was great. Yeah, it was filled with anime dorks, but the teacher is just about the smartest guy I've ever known. Just standing in the same room as him makes you smarter. He used to be a psychological interrogator in the marines. And he's just as effective now. He's like Sasha from Psychonauts or something, his mind is probably a neat and tidy cube. Kinda looks like Sasha, too.
Either way, all of the professors teaching these classes are obscenely smart and awesome people and they're setting up the vanguard to start taking gaming and comics/animation as serious study in the future. Even though modern comics have been around about as long as modern film, it still hasn't gotten its due in academia. We need teachers like this who take the subjects seriously and attack the actual theory within them.
I'm studying some weird amalgam of gaming, comics, animation, film, asia, pop culture, etc. and I don't know what the HELL I'm going to do with it, but it sure is interesting, especially since all of these things are kind of starting to merge together.
Agent Dormer
Dirty Drinking Smoker
Well, we all remember how the class I took last year went:
http://www.ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=34513
http://www.ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=34513
Bluecondor
Member
I don't know man - I looked at that syllabus, and this class could go either way.
On one hand, if your prof is open-minded, but insightful in making connections, a course in which you try to draw linkages between gaming and other art forms could be absolutely fascinating. Hopefully it will be this way - at least somewhat anyway.
On the other hand, if your professor is dogmatic about this approach, you might end up in one of those classes that is like a freight train churning toward its destination, with your professor making everyone sit around and overanalyze Fluxor (or whatever its called), when everyone just wanted to learn something interesting about video games.
The last two weeks of the seminar (gender and gaming and gaming and activism) are also red flags. I mean, these are both pretty much fringe topics, but, if she goes off about them - you will have to endure your professor on the soapbox, giving you her opinions on the greater meaning of games.
I guess it's like any other class - a good prof can really bring it to life, while a bad one could make this torture. Thr problem with this class though, is that if she is mediocre and can't hold your attention, you will grow bored with this class really quickly, since you are going into it knowing that the subject matter is really interesting (whereas I prefer teaching classes on topics that people are not necessarily aware of/into at first).
On one hand, if your prof is open-minded, but insightful in making connections, a course in which you try to draw linkages between gaming and other art forms could be absolutely fascinating. Hopefully it will be this way - at least somewhat anyway.
On the other hand, if your professor is dogmatic about this approach, you might end up in one of those classes that is like a freight train churning toward its destination, with your professor making everyone sit around and overanalyze Fluxor (or whatever its called), when everyone just wanted to learn something interesting about video games.
The last two weeks of the seminar (gender and gaming and gaming and activism) are also red flags. I mean, these are both pretty much fringe topics, but, if she goes off about them - you will have to endure your professor on the soapbox, giving you her opinions on the greater meaning of games.
I guess it's like any other class - a good prof can really bring it to life, while a bad one could make this torture. Thr problem with this class though, is that if she is mediocre and can't hold your attention, you will grow bored with this class really quickly, since you are going into it knowing that the subject matter is really interesting (whereas I prefer teaching classes on topics that people are not necessarily aware of/into at first).
So, our first day of class, among other things, we went outside to do group variations of Hopscotch...
Mine had lava squares, and an arrow gun square, and the goal was to do it as quickly as possible on one foot before the terrorist bomb went off, and you failed America.
Somebody else made a penis-shaped hopscotch board:
And other random ones:
The teacher is also currently having problems with replicating fire using the Unreal engine for something she's doing in her spare time.
Mine had lava squares, and an arrow gun square, and the goal was to do it as quickly as possible on one foot before the terrorist bomb went off, and you failed America.
Somebody else made a penis-shaped hopscotch board:
And other random ones:
The teacher is also currently having problems with replicating fire using the Unreal engine for something she's doing in her spare time.
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