Schedule
Please note that this is a live schedule and is ever evolving as the course (/world) changes. Please check back frequently for due dates of assignments and course proceedings.
Week 1
Tuesday 9/1
- Introductions
- First Day Assessment
- Course Overview
- Lecture: Introduction
- Tutorial: Introduction to Unity
Due:
- Nothing Due Today!
Thursday 9/3
- Lecture: Arcades and Asteroids
- Tutorial: Game Objects, Components, and MonoBehavior
- Tutorial: C# Fundamentals
- Tutorial: Getting Components, Transform, and Time
- Exercise: Create a Pattern
- Tutorial: Physics Motion
Due:
- Read: Chapter 3: What Is It Good For? from Anthropy, A. (2012) Rise of the Videogame Zinesters
- Read: Chapter 1. Language from Anthropy, A., Clark. N. (2014). A Game Design Vocabulary : Exploring the foundational principles behind good game design.
- Read: Chapter 2. Verbs from Anthropy, A., Clark. N. (2014). A Game Design Vocabulary : Exploring the foundational principles behind good game design.
- Play (30 min +): Asteroids
- Recommended: Purchase an external drive (Recommendation)
- Recommended: Read: Chapter 2 The History of Magic from Anthropy, A. (2012) Rise of the Videogame Zinesters
- Recommended: Read: Games as an Aesthetic Form from Lantz. F. (2023). The Beauty of Games
- Optional: Install Unity on your personal computer
Week 2
Tuesday 9/8
- Tutorial: Camera
- Tutorial: Randomness
- Tutorial: User Input
- Exercise: Modify Input
- Exercise: Add Rotation
Due:
- Read: Good Clean Fun from Newman. Z., M. (2017). Atari Age
- Read: Woodhouse, N., T. (2025). Feeding the Iron Pimps: The Golden Age of Arcades in Black America. Game Studies, 25(3).
- Recommended: Read: The Microcosmic Arcade from Kocurek. A., C. (2015) Coin-Operated Americans: Rebooting Boyhood at the Video Game Arcade
Thursday 9/10
- Tutorial: Prefabs, Instantiation, and Destroy
- Tutorial: Colliders, Triggers, and Tags
- Assign: Arcades Everywhere
Due:
- Read: Arcade Everywhere
- Project: Complete Arcade Everywhere Close Play and Journal by Fri @ Midnight
Week 3
Tuesday 9/15
- Tutorial: Game Manger and Singleton
- Tutorial: Lists
Due:
- Read: Kocurek. A., C. (2012). The Agony and the Exidy: A History of Video Game Violence and the Legacy of Death Race. Game Studies, 12(1).
- Read: Bogost. I., Montfort. N. (2009) Random and raster: Display technologies and the development of videogames. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 31(3), 34-43.
Thursday 9/17
- Tutorial: User Interface
- Tutorial: Fonts
- Tutorial: Updating Text
- Tutorial: Art
- Tutorial: Animation
- Tutorial: Animation States
Due:
- Complete Tutorial: Asteroid Generations
- Complete Tutorial: Player Lives and Score
Friday 9/18: Field Trip
- Meet at Lost Levels Arcade: 12:00 PM
Week 4
Tuesday 9/22
- Tutorial: Sound
Due:
- Project: Complete Arcades Everywhere Proposal
Thursday 9/24
- Tutorial: Scenes and Data
- Studio Time: Arcades Everywhere
Due:
- Project: Continue work on Arcades Everywhere
Week 5
Tuesday 9/29
- Tutorial: Building
- Studio Time: Arcades Everywhere
Due:
- Project: Complete Arcades Everywhere Prototype
Thursday 10/1
- Tutorial: Itch
- Studio Time: Arcades Everywhere
Due:
- Project: Continue work on Arcades Everywhere
Week 6
Tuesday 10/6
- Studio Time: Arcades Everywhere
Due:
- Project: Continue work on Arcades Everywhere
Thursday 10/8
- Crit: Arcades Everywhere
Due:
- Project: Arcades Everywhere Final Project
- Project Arcades Everywhere writing due Friday @ Midnight
Week 7
Tuesday 10/13
- Lecture: Interactive Multimedia
- Tutorial: Input Actions
- Tutorial: Raycasting
- Tutorial: Interface
Due:
- Read: Media Island project description
Thursday 10/15: I'm away at a conference
- Play assigned Media Island Games during class together.
Due:
- Project: Begin Media Island Close Play, Due Wednesday 10/21 @ Midnight
Week 8
Tuesday 10/20: Break
- Fall Break
Due:
- Nothing Due Today!
Thursday 10/22
- Tutorial: Scriptable Object Inventory
- Tutorial: Persistent Data
Due:
- Watch/Listen: How Computers Took Over Our Lives with Laine Nooney - Factually! - 220. This is an interview with Laine Nooney on their book, The Apple II Age. This podcast is a good frame work for the chapter on games you will be reading from Nooney’s book
- Read: Games from Nooney, L. (2023). The Apple II Age: How the Computer Became Personal.
- Play (30 min +): Mystery House by Roberta and Ken Williams
- Recommended: Read: Nooney, L. (2013) A Pedestal, A Table, A Love Letter: Archaeologies of Gender in Video Game History. Game Studies. 13(1).
- Recommended: Read: Nooney, L. (2017) Let’s Begin Again: Sierra On-Line and the Origins of the Graphical Adventure Game/ American Journal of Play. 10(1).
Week 9
Tuesday 10/27
- Exercise: FMV JAM!
Due:
- Watch: How Myst Almost Couldn’t Run on CD-ROM
- Read: Chapter 8 — Early 3D and the Multimedia Boom (1989–1996) from Williams, A (2017) History of Digital Games.
- Read: Hutchison, A. (2008) Making the Water Move: Techno-Historic Limits in the Game Aesthetics of Myst and Doom. Game Studies. 8(1)
- Play (1hr +): Myst, optionally play Myst using Steam on Lab Computer
- Recommended: Play: The Manhole
- Recommended: Watch: Classic Postmortem: The Making Of Myst
Thursday 10/29
- Tutorial: Dialog with Inky
Due:
- Watch: Yet Another Excavation Zone: the Multimedia by Erkki Huhtamo
- Read: Exhibition Text for Contact Zones: The Art of CD-Rom, Browse the exhibition artists
- Read: Resurrecting the Digital Past: Access to Artistic Content on CD-ROMs
Week 10
Tuesday 11/3
- Studio Time: Media Island
Due:
- Project: Media Island proposal
Thursday 11/5
- Studio Time: Media Island
Due:
- Project: Continue work on Media Island
Week 11
Tuesday 11/10
- Studio Time: Media Island
Due:
- Project: Media Island prototype
Thursday 11/12
- Studio Time: Media Island
Due:
- Project: Continue work on Media Island
Week 12
Tuesday 11/17
- Crit: Media Island
Due:
- Project: Media Island project
Thursday 11/19
- Lecture: Nuovo Games
- Discuss: New Engines project
- Studio Time: New Engines
Due:
- Read: New Engines project description
Week 13
Tuesday 11/24
- Studio Time: New Engines
Due:
- Project: Continue work on New Engines
- Read: Chapter 1 from Nicoll. B., Keogh, B. (2019) The Unity Game Engine and the Circuits of Cultural Software.
- Read: Chapter 1 from Bittanti, M., Ruffino, P., Catricala, V. (2026) Game Engine Culture(s)
Thursday 11/26: Break
- Break
Due:
- Project: Continue work on New Engines
Week 14
Tuesday 12/1
- Studio Time: New Engines
Due:
- Project: New Engines working Prototype Due
- Read: Chapter 2 from Nicoll. B., Keogh, B. (2019) The Unity Game Engine and the Circuits of Cultural Software.
Thursday 12/3
- Studio Time: New Engines
Due:
- Project: Continue work on New Engines
- Project: New Engines Close Play and Journal Due Friday @ Midnight
Week 15
Tuesday 12/8
- Crit: New Engines
Due:
- Project: New Engines
- Project: Writing Due: 12/10 11:59 PM