EDGE

Submission of Major Assignment 1: Transformative Game Design Proposal

Write a proposal for your transformative game design project. This project will be a nano-game that is playable by your playtest group in less than an hour over video conferencing. The nano-game should be designed for 2-3 players not including yourself, and should have some flexibility in terms of number of players required for your playtest.

Your proposal should be between 700-1000 words. Use Times New Roman font single-spaced.

This proposal should be written as an analytical academic paper rather than a set of game instructions. You will write instructions in your Game Design Document, which is intended for a general audience. Your proposal should include:

1. Research question: Include a research question for your project. What problem are you trying to solve or question do you hope to get answered through this design process?
2. A brief overview of the concept for the nano-game (3-4 paragraphs. A paragraph should contain 4-6 sentences). This overview should contain:
   • The type of role-playing game: Tabletop? Larp? Freeform?
   • The target population: For whom are you designing this game?
   • The purpose: What transformative impact are you hoping to achieve?
   • The setting: Where does this game take place in the fiction? 
   • The characters: Who will the players role-play? How do the characters and/or groups relate? (Just provide a rough sketch here. You will focus on character design in more detail later).
   • The scenario: Why are these characters in this setting?
   • The affordances: What should the player-characters do in this scenario?
   • The mechanics: Are there specific mechanics or metatechniques you want to include?
   • The length: Note that your nano-game should not exceed 1 hr for the whole experience: 45 minutes maximum for the entire game including workshopping and debriefing, making sure you save 15 min for game design feedback from all participants.
   • The safety design: What before, during, or after safety strategies will you include?
3. Describe and cite 3 separate concepts from the textbook chapters you have read so far and connect them with your design practice  (1 paragraph each for a total of 3). 
   • Focus on details rather than generalities: Avoid choosing large concepts like “bleed.” Instead focus on three (3) specific concepts within larger distinct theories or practices that you can define from your sources, for example choosing a specific category of bleed described in the textbook.
   • Apply Concepts to Design Practice: Discuss specific ways in which these concepts informed your game design practice. Be specific about how the concepts informed, for example, your chosen mechanics, workshop design, debrief questions, etc. This application of course materials to your practice is crucial to this assignment.
   • Only use concepts from the textbook. Explain each concept in detail, citing the relevant sources in Chicago Author-Date format. We recommend using the citations we provide for you in the Module Overviews and textbook References, which mostly reflect Chicago Author-Date 6th edition. 
     • Do not include more than three (3) concepts.
     • As our learning outcomes center on demonstrating comprehension of analog role-playing game studies, including concepts outside the course materials will result in an automatic fail on the paper. You will be able to research more generally in your thesis project.
     • You will cite the chapters (not the whole book), and the page numbers where you found the information in the textbook.
     • In academic writing, you should demonstrate knowledge of the lineage of a particular concept, not only the source where you first encountered it. The authors of the book did not invent most of the content, hence our citations. Therefore, you will also cite the the original sources we are citing, which you can find embedded in our in-text citations and the References at the end. 

Based on this proposal, you will create a Game Design Document with instructions for facilitation. You will then playtest, receive feedback, and analyze the feedback in a final paper, Major Assignment 2, which will be due at the end of the course. You may use Major Assignment 1 for the the beginning sections of Major Assignment 2.

Important notes

• Upon completion, please share your Major Assignment 1 immediately with your Playtest group when complete. Your peers should have the time and opportunity to opt-out as needed. Please contact your teachers if this happens.
• You must receive a passing grade on this assignment to proceed to Transformative Game Design 1. You may not use generative AI on this assignment or any others. We are interested in your own design thoughts, not a machine’s. 

Instructions for citations

• Cite the specific chapter from the textbook, not the full book, which is an edited volume. The authors are different in each chapter. If you cite only the editors, you are erasing the contributions of other authors.
  • In Chicago Author-Date, chapters with more than three authors are cited with the first author, followed by et al. In our case, we will apply this principle only for in-text citations, as we want to acknowledge the authors in our field in the citations.
  • Therefore, for textbook chapters, you will cite in-text as either (Bowman et al. 2024) or (Diakolambrianou et al. 2024) and include the page number where you found the information.
  • In your References page, include all authors to give credit where credit is due.
• In general, in all academic work, you should read the original sources to make sure the concept is being conveyed accurately. You can then cite both sources, for example:
  • • (Kemper 2020; Bowman et al. 2024).
• If you do not read the original source, you must indicate in the text where you found the information in one of the following ways: 
  • If the source is cited in the text but not quoted, i.e., summarized or paraphrased, you will write “as cited in” for example:
    • (Kemper 2020, as cited in Bowman et al. 2024).
  • If you integrate a quote included in the textbook, you will write “qtd. in” for example:
    • (Kemper 2020, qtd. in Bowman et al. 2024).