GAM 550 Incubation Studio
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Summary
Students situate their creative practice within historical, aesthetic, and social contexts. This includes an introspective analysis of why they want to design games. Students identify potential research areas or creative catalysts for their thesis projects, conducting research, critiquing and analyzing relevant work, technologies, and reference materials. The final course assignment is a thesis proposal outlining their project plans for Thesis Studio, which each student must get approved by their advisor before entering Thesis Studio (slated for Spring 2026).
In this course, students will complete the preliminary ideation phase ahead of their year-long thesis development process. They will begin this ‘playcentric’ iterative process with ‘blue sky thinking’, design research, prototyping, and communicating/documenting the steps taken during the ideation phase. Students will engage in critique and goal setting. The principles and hands-on practices from this course can also be applied to the pre-production of any future interactive project design process including and beyond their thesis project.
Texts
Prerequisites
PREREQUISITE(S): GAM 530 and GAM 540
This syllabus is subject to change as necessary during the quarter. If a change occurs, it will be thoroughly addressed during class, posted under Announcements in D2L and sent via email.
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