Revised Game Studies Syllabus for Spring 2023 (“Oops, All Disco Elysium”)!

With my new role as chair, I’ve only got one class this term, but it’s a good one: a upper-division version of my Game Studies class, with this term’s special Disco Elysium focus. Here’s the week by week:

DAY	DATE		ASSIGNMENT
W	Jan 18	START	FIRST DAY OF CLASS
F	Jan 20	NARRATIVE	Game: The Stanley Parable Corey Mohler, Existential Comics: “Candyland and the Nature of the Absurd” Interview with Davey Wreden, Creator of The Stanley Parable
M	Jan 23	ART	Game: Doom Roger Ebert, “Doom,” “Critics vs. Games on Doom,” “Why Did The Chicken Cross the Genders,” “Video Games Can Never Be Art” Ian Bogost, “Art”
W	Jan 25	MEANING	Game: Journey Mäyrä, “What Is Game Studies?” and “Meaning in Games”
F	Jan 27	CHOICE	Game/Film: Black Mirror:Bandersnatch (in-class viewing)
M	Jan 30	DESIGN	Game/Film: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (in-class viewing and discussion) Nele Van de Mosselaer and Stefano Gualeni, “The Implied Designer and the Experience of Gameworlds”
W	Feb 1	FILM	Galloway, “Gamic Action, Four Moments”
F	Feb 3	DISCO!	DE: CHARACTER CREATION SCREEN AND GETTING OUT OF YOUR HOTEL ROOM
M	Feb 6	ROLEPLAY	Game: Dungeons and Dragons  Vox.com, “Dungeons and Dragons, Explained” Aaron Trammell, “From Where Do Dungeons Come?” Aaron Trammell, “Misogyny and the Female Body in Dungeons and Dragons”
W	Feb 8	CRITIQUE	Game: The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild  Gerry Canavan, “The Legend of Zelda in the Anthropocene”
F	Feb 10	DISCO!	DE: Day 1
M	Feb 13	HABIT	Game: Tetris Bogost, “Habituation” Chris Higgins, “Playing to Lose” Sam Anderson, “Just One More Game…” Film excerpts: The Ecstasy of Order
W	Feb 15	ADDICTION	Game: Candy Crush, League of Legends, Hearthstone, Marvel Snap!, etc.  Ramin Shokrizade, “The Top F2P Monetization Tricks” June Thomas, “Sugar Coma” Julia Lepetit and Andrew Bridgman, “The Most Realistic Game Ever” Ian Bogost, “Rage Against the Machines” and Cow Clicker
F	Feb 17	DISCO!	DE: Day 1 (replay)
M	Feb 20	VIOLENCE	Game: Doom revisited, Call of Duty, etc. Galloway, “Origins of the First Person Shooter”and “Social Realism” Ludus Novus, “Why So Few Violent Games?”
W	Feb 22	EMPIRE	Bogost, “Titilation” Stephen Kline, Nick Dyer-Witheford, and Greig de Peuter, “Designing Militarized Masculinity: Violence, Gender, and the Bias of Game Experience” Mathieu Triclot, Raphaël Verchère, “Video Game Violence: A Philosophical Conversation with Mathieu Triclot”
F	Feb 24	DISCO!	DE: Day 2
M	Feb 27	SIMULATION	Game: Sid Meier’s Civilization, etc.  Galloway, “Allegories of Control” Kacper Pobłocki, “Becoming-State: The Bio-Cultural Imperialism of Sid Meier’s Civilization”
W	Mar 1	IDEOLOGY	Game: SimCity, etc.  Ava Kofman, “Les Simerables” Mike Sterry, “The Totalitarian Buddhist Who Beat Sim City”
F	Mar 3	DISCO!	DE: Day 3
M	Mar 6	DECEPTION	Game: Werewolf, etc.  Nathan Cutietta, “A Mental Model Approach to Deception in Single Player Games”
W	Mar 8	WORK	Mäyrä, “Preparing for a Game Studies Project”
F	Mar 10	DISCO!	DE: Day 4
M-F	Mar 13-17	PAUSE	SPRING BREAK—NO CLASS
M	Mar 20	ENDGAME 1	Disco Elysium endgame discussion
W	Mar 22	ENDGAME 2	Disco Elysium endgame discussion
F	Mar 24	ENDGAME 3	Disco Elysium endgame discussion
M	Mar 27	CRITICISM	Disco Elysium criticism
W	Mar 29	CRITICISM	Disco Elysium criticism
F	Mar 31	CRITICISM	Disco Elysium criticism
M	Apr 3	SEQUEL	Disco Elysium 2 discussion
W	Apr 5	WORKSHOP	paper/project workshop (in class)
F	Apr 7	DEATH	EASTER BREAK—NO CLASS
M	Apr 10	RESPAWN	EASTER BREAK—NO CLASS
M-F	Apr 12-21	DLC	We will choose the special topics for this part of the class together.
M	Apr 24	FLOW	Stephen Johnson, Everything Bad Is Good for You(excerpt)  Jane McGonigal, Reality Is Broken (excerpt) Braxton Soderman, Against Flow (excerpt)
W	Apr 26	RESIST	Countergames: molleindustria.org Galloway, “Countergaming”
F	Apr 28	TUTORIAL	GRAD STUDENT PRESENTATIONS
M-F	May 1-May 5	LEVEL UP	UNDERGRAD PRESENTATIONS
F	May 9	GAME OVER	FINAL PAPER/PROJECT DUE ON D2L BY 10 AM