294 F21 Fleck | English Language and Literature

ENGL 294: Intro to Critical Game Studies (Online)

Instructor: Alex Fleck

Email: a3fleck@uwaterloo.ca

Office Hours: F 11:00am-1:00pm EST or by appointment

Office: Discord Group (link/info on Learn)

Contact Information/Policies

Announcements

Your instructor uses the Announcements widget on the Course Home page during the term to communicate new or changing information regarding due dates, instructor absence, etc., as needed. You are expected to read the announcements on a regular basis.

To ensure you are viewing the complete list of announcements, you may need to click Show All Announcements.

Discussions

Course discussion and other elements (like forums) will take place on Discord.

Server Access: https://discord.gg/4nh7byqrgm

Please sign up for the channel with your full name as it appears on the course registry (on Quest). I will DM and ask you to do so if you do not, and then eventually ban anyone in the Discord whose display name does not match the class registry.In the #onboarding-chat channel there is more information once you are on the server, including troubleshooting links and resources. I’ve also written a course Annoucement about Discord/onboarding on Learn: Homepage - ENGL 294 - Fall 2021 (uwaterloo.ca).

Course Description

This course introduces students to the field of humanities-based game studies. Topics may include the debate between ludological (rules-based) and narratological (story-based) approaches, procedural studies, platform and software studies, gamification, games and adaptation studies, and games as rhetorical objects.

Expanding a bit, this course provides critical perspectives on the reception, consumption, and production of games. The focus is largely on digital/video games, but analog games are included as well. Some of the big questions this course considers are: How do games create meaning and experiences for players as a medium (relative to Film, Literature, or other media)? How are players of games treated by game companies and the (massive) industry that shapes games culture? What does it mean to represent oneself in virtual space, or what happens when you cannot or are not represented or welcome in gaming spaces? What role does narrative and/or player agency play in games creating meaning? Consideration of games as material objects as part of platforms and as software (media archaeology/platform studies), and applied game design (how games are made) are also engaged with on the course.

In terms of student development, this course will foster critical thinking and written communication skills and is aimed at a second-year undergraduate student. Students approaching this course from outside the humanities or social sciences (that have not been in a humanities course at a university level) may have some difficulty adjusting to the frequency of written assignments, as well as the standards of assessment for written work.

Courses During Covid

The designation of this course is “online” in order to account for physical distancing and other measures still in place on campus. I have replaced in-class participation with a heftier written component (Discord Q and A) in order to account for this. There are also opportunities to directly interact with the instructor and other students on office hours (11am – 1pm EST Fridays). If it turns out students would prefer split office hours instead over two days, I will establish a second day. There are also relatively strict deadlines for weekly submissions, but I have included a universal flex time you can apply to most assignments (see: course policies).

Learning Objectives

This course will introduce and help develop several skills. By the end of the term, you should be able to successfully:

Read a game as a text, taking into consideration its mechanics, storytelling, and other relevant aspects to form a critical argument about its meaning and goals.
Apply critical approaches to understanding games, their culture, production, or reception in dialogue with the critics that outline those approaches.
Recognize the ways in which games are cultural objects that intersect with broader cultural considerations around class, race, gender, queerness, and disability.
Synthesize the above skills and awareness to write academically about and create games-related projects (more on this later).

Grade Breakdown:

Activities and Assignments	Weight (%)
Introduce Yourself	Ungraded
Responses (10 weeks)	25
Discord Q and A (10 weeks)	15
Game Analysis	25
Final Paper/Project	35

Reading Responses:

These are reading responses that in some ways synthesize the weekly reading and game playing you have been assigned for that week. They are due in the Learn dropbox on the dates indicated on Learn and the course schedule. Emphasis is on responding in some way to what you read (developing a critical idea or direction, making critical comparisons between texts/games and other texts/games, etc.). This is NOT meant to be a summary. Length should be between 300 – 500 words (not more).

Discord Q and A:

On Discord part of your weekly work is to leave three discussion questions for the group so that others can respond and we can discuss the reading/playing we did. These questions can come directly out of the thinking you did in your reading response or any other thoughts you had while reading/watching/playing that might have been cut from your response. Questions should be relevant to the weekly reading/game(s). You must also meaningfully respond to other questions/interesting discussion areas that your peers have brought up (at least two). Length of responses/questions can vary, but should make up about 200-400 words of activity (on the appropriate Discord discussion forum). I have links on Learn (in Annoucements for getting started with Discord, with additional support on the server in the #onboarding-chat channel. Server access: https://discord.gg/4nh7byqrgm.

Game Analysis

A close reading exercise of one of the games we’ve played (or an instructor approved alternative). 1000-1500 words, developing a critical position on how that particular game creates meaning (and to what ends or purposes it does so). More details to follow in advance of the due date.Paper is due into the appropriate Learn drop box.

Final Assessment

Students can either write a 2000-2500 word final essay that forms and develops a critical argument/thesis using course texts or instructor-approved other texts, or create a games-related critical Final Project with an accompanying 1000-1500 word academic write-up. A detailed assignment description with examples will be provided in advance of the due date.Project links, documents, images, or other material will be delivered to the appropriate Learn dropbox. Papers will also be submitted to the Learn drop box.

Reading/Watching:

All readings will be provided at no cost and should be available through UW’s library website Library | University of Waterloo Library (uwaterloo.ca) (make sure you’re signed in); that or they will be provided through course platforms (Learn/Discord).

Alharthi, Sultan A., et al. "Playing to wait: A taxonomy of idle games." Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2018.

Altice, Nathan. "The playing card platform."Analogue Game Studies4.2 (2014).

Antonelli, Paul. “Why I brought Pac-Man to MoMA”. Ted.com. https://www.ted.com/talks/paola_antonelli_why_i_brought_pac_man_to_moma?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare

Russworm, TreaAndrea M., and Samantha Blackmon. "Replaying Video Game History as a Mixtape of Black Feminist Thought."Feminist Media Histories6.1 (2020): 93-118.

Phillips, Amanda.Gamer Trouble : Feminist Confrontations in Digital Culture, New York University Press, 2020.ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/waterloo/detail.action?docID=6129673.

Dyer-Witheford, Nick, and Greig De Peuter. "Postscript: Gaming while empire burns." Games and culture 16.3 (2021): 371-380.

Ebert, Roger. “Video games can never be art.” RogerEbert.com. Video games can never be art | Roger Ebert | Roger Ebert.

Flanagan, Mary, and Helen Nissenbaum. "Implementation". Values at play in digital games. MIT Press, 2014.

Flanagan, Mary. " Critical Play : Radical Game Design, MIT Press, 2009.ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/waterloo/detail.action?docID=3339056.

Frasca, Gonzalo. "Simulation versus narrative: Introduction to ludology."The video game theory reader. Routledge, 2013. 243-258.

Fullerton, Tracy. "Chapter 1" inGame Design Workshop : A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, Fourth Edition, CRC Press LLC, 2018.ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/Waterloo/detail.action?docID=5477698.

Jenkins, Henry. "Game design as narrative architecture."Computer44.3 (2004): 118-130.

Juul, Jesper. "Games telling stories."Handbook of computer game studies(2005): 219-226.

Gibbons, Sarah. "Disability, neurological diversity, and inclusive play: An examination of the social and political aspects of the relationship between disability and games."Loading...9.14 (2015).

Harper, Todd. "Role-play as queer lens: How “ClosetShep” changed my vision of Mass Effect."Queer game studies (2017): 125-134.

Hertz, Garnet, and Jussi Parikka. “Zombie Media: Circuit Bending Media Archaeology into an Art Method.” Leonardo (Oxford), vol. 45, no. 5, MIT Press, 2012, pp. 424–30, doi:10.1162/LEON_a_00438.

Kishonna Gray, Lai-Tze Fan, Aynur Kadir. “Racial Equity Board Games Panel” https://youtu.be/PA3Km6_TuZU

Kopas, Merritt, ed.Videogames for humans: Twine authors in conversation. Instar Books, 2015.

Klug, Chris. "Dice as dramaturge."Tabletop: analog game design. 2011. 30-40.

Parker, Felan. "Roger Ebert and the games-as-art debate." Cinema Journal 57.3 (2018): 77-100.

Phillips, Amanda.Gamer Trouble. New York University Press, 2020.

Rodriguez, Hector. "The playful and the serious: An approximation to Huizinga's Homo Ludens."Game Studies6.1 (2006): 1604-7982.

Russworm, TreaAndrea M., and Samantha Blackmon. "Replaying Video Game History as a Mixtape of Black Feminist Thought."Feminist Media Histories6.1 (2020): 93-118.

Ruberg, Bonnie, and Adrienne Shaw, eds.Queer game studies. U of Minnesota Press, 2017.

Sicart, Miguel.Play matters. mit Press, 2014.

Shaw, Adrienne. "What is video game culture? Cultural studies and game studies." Games and culture 5.4 (2010): 403-424.

Vossen, Emma, and Neil Randall. On the Cultural Inaccessibility of Gaming: Invading, Creating, and Reclaiming the Cultural Clubhouse. University of Waterloo, 2018.

Games:

Games are required texts on our course; the expectation is that you will be spending time playing games.***

“Cookie Clicker”- Cookie Clicker (cookie-clicker.co)

"Depression Quest" - Zoe Quinn, Patrick Lindsey, Isaac Schankler Depression Quest: An Interactive (non)fiction About Living With Depression

“Her Story” - Sam Barlow: Her Story on Steam (steampowered.com)

“Into the Breach” - Subset Games: Into the Breach on Steam (steampowered.com)

“Life is Strange - Ep.1” - DONTNOD: Life is Strange - Episode 1 on Steam (steampowered.com)

“Passage”- Jason Rohrer: Passage (toolness.org)

"Mainichi" - Mattie Brice: Mainichi – Mattie Brice

“Queers in Love at the End of the World” – Anna Anthropy: Queers in Love at the End of the World by anna anthropy (itch.io)

“Tetris” - Alexey Pajitnov: Play Tetris | Free Online Game | Tetris

“The Stanley Parable” - Galactic Cafe: The Stanley Parable on Steam (steampowered.com)

“The Uncle Who Works at Nintento” – Michael Lutz: the uncle who works for nintendo by ztul (itch.io)

*Students can use any version of a given game that is accessible to them. In-browser versions and games available in a few places (Mac, Linux, Windows, Game Consoles) were selected to ensure a relative degree of access across multiple platforms.

**Steam provides demoes of many games and a refund policy just in case you become aware of bio-feedback issues (like nausea) when playing. If anyone has an issue playing a required game text, feel free to reach out and we can discuss alternative options.

***As a last resort, Let's Plays/Twitch and other ways of watching others play a given game text are accepted. But, again, this should be only be done in consultation with the course Instructor (last resort!).

Course Schedule

Date	Read/Watch	Play	Topic	Due:
Week 1: September 8-10	Course Syllabus/Outline	Discord. Use your full name as registered on LEARN/Quest on our class server. Server Access: https://discord.gg/4nh7byqrgm	Introductions (ON DISCORD) September 10th 11:00am (office hours): Meet me and others. Go to “#introduce-yourself” on Discord.	Introduce yourself in writing on Discord. There is a Discord onboarding channel with instructions/information.
Week 2: September 13-17	Shaw “What is Videogame Culture?” \| Dyer-Witheford and De Peuter “Gaming While Empire Burns”\| Alharthi et al “Playing to Wait: A Taxonomy of Idle Games”	Cookie Clicker	Videogame Culture	Reading Response 1 –September 15: Discord Q and A September 16.
Week 3: September 20-24	Ebert “Videogames Can Never Be Art"\| Paola Antonelli: Why I brought Pac-Man to MoMA \|Felan Parker “Roger Ebert and the Games-as-Art Debate”\|	Tetris Passage	Videogames as Art(?)	Reading Response 2 – September 22: Discord Q and A September 23.
Week 4: September 27 – October 1	Flanagan and Nissenbaum “Values at Play” \| Fullerton “The Role of the Game Designer”\|Flanagan “Intro. To Critical Play”	Into the Breach	Game Design Thinking	Reading Response 3 – September 29th: Discord Q and A September 30th.
Week 5: October 4-8	Jenkins “Game Design as Narrative Architecture.” \| Frasca “Simulation versus Narrative”	Her Story	Ludology/Narratology	Reading Response 4 – October 6: Discord Q and A October 7th
Week 6	Reading Week	Reading Week	Reading Week	Reading Week
Week 7: October 18-22	Parrika & Hertz “Zombie Media”\| Montfort/Bogost “Platform Studies Introduction”\| Montfort/Bogost “Stella”	Emulation workshop (TBD)	Media Archeaology/Platform Studies	Reading response 5 – October 20: Discord Q and A October 21
				Game Analysis: October 25
Week 8: October 25-29	Rodriguez “The Playful and the Serious” \| Callois “The Definition of Play” \|Sicart “Play is”	Watch or play a sports thing or a childhood game (TAG or Hide-and-Seek for example).	Play	Reading response 6 – October 27: Discord Q and A October 28
Week 9: November 1-5	Philips “Gamer Trouble”\|Vossen “(G)amers versus gamers (Chapter 1)”\| Chess & Shaw “A Conspiracy of Fishes”	Life is Strange – Ep 1	Gamer identity and Cultural Inaccessibility Pt 1	Reading response 7 – November 3: Discord Q and A November 4
Week 10: November 8-12	Harper "Role-play as queer lens”\| Gibbons “Disability, Neurological Diversity, and Inclusive Play”\| Russworm & Blackmon “Videogame History as a “Mixtape of Black Feminist Thought”	Mainichi	Intersectional Responses Pt 2	Reading response 8 – November 10: Discord Q and A November 11
Week 11: November 15-19	Text Adventures: how Twine remade gaming (theverge.com)\|Koppas “Introduction” Videogames for Humans	Depression Quest \| Queers In Love at the End of the World \|The Uncle Who Works for Nintendo	Interactive Fiction (Twine)	Reading Response 9 – November 17: Discord Q and A November 18th
Week 12: November 22-26	Kishonna Gray, Lai-Tze Fan, Aynur Kadir, “Racial Equity Board Games Panel”\|Klug “Dice as Dramaturge”\|Altice “The Playing Card Platform”	Play an analog game, or play an analog game digitally (multiplayer or by yourself)	Analog Games	Reading Response 10 – November 24: Discord Q and A November 25
Week 13: November 29 – December 3	Your own responses/analysis/drafts	Replay parts of your essay/project games for inspiration	Outro/Essay Prep: Paper Workshopping(?): More on this later	Free Work Time: For Essay/Project
				Final Essay/Project: December 7th

Course Policies

Major Assignments (Game Analysis and the Final Essay/Project) are penalized 2% a day that they are late (including weekends). The end of term (the day before when grades are due into UW) provides a hard limit for late submissions. Flex-time can be used.

Reading Responses are penalized 5% a day (including weekends). Flex-time can be used.

Discord Q and A does not have a late option; the questions and responses/answers must be submitted by end of day (11:59pm) the Thursday of the week it is due (to the Discord). The grade is 0 if it isn’t received. Flex-time CANNOT be used.

I recommend that responses be uploaded to the appropriate Learn drop box starting (at the latest) 15 minutes before 11:59pm the day it is due so that technical difficulties and a mass of students submitting to the drop box does not create issues. The same advice applies to Discord, but this is less likely to be an issue. Students should receive a confirmation email upon successful file delivery to the Learn drop box.

Submission Flex-time

Given this course is online and there is a heavy written component, I wanted to provide some flexibility in the due dates. I’m calling this “flex time” because it is up to you how you use it. You have ten days of automatic extension time that can be distributed however you please among all Learn dropbox assignments (reading responses, game analysis, final project/paper). However, in order for it to be considered when I do grading, you must tell me in the submission notes (on Learn) how many days you are using (Ex. “Flex time = 3 days”). Then, I will make sure to account for your allocation.

Resources

Library COVID-19: Updates on library services and operations.

Services for Undergraduate Students | Writing and Communication Centre | University of Waterloo (uwaterloo.ca)

University Policies

Academic integrity: In order to maintain a culture of academic integrity, members of the University of Waterloo community are expected to promote honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility. [Check the Office of Academic Integrity for more information.]

Grievance: A student who believes that a decision affecting some aspect of his/her university life has been unfair or unreasonable may have grounds for initiating a grievance. Read Policy 70, Student Petitions and Grievances, Section 4. When in doubt, please be certain to contact the department’s administrative assistant who will provide further assistance.

Discipline: A student is expected to know what constitutes academic integrity to avoid committing an academic offence, and to take responsibility for his/her actions. [Check the Office of Academic Integrity for more information.] A student who is unsure whether an action constitutes an offence, or who needs help in learning how to avoid offences (e.g., plagiarism, cheating) or about “rules” for group work/collaboration should seek guidance from the course instructor, academic advisor, or the undergraduate associate dean. For information on categories of offences and types of penalties, students should refer to Policy 71, Student Discipline. For typical penalties, check Guidelines for the Assessment of Penalties.

Appeals: A decision made or penalty imposed under Policy 70, Student Petitions and Grievances (other than a petition) or Policy 71, Student Discipline may be appealed if there is a ground. A student who believes he/she has a ground for an appeal should refer to Policy 72, Student Appeals.

Note for students with disabilities: AccessAbility Services, located in Needles Hall, Room 1401, collaborates with all academic departments to arrange appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities without compromising the academic integrity of the curriculum. If you require academic accommodations to lessen the impact of your disability, please register with AccessAbility Services at the beginning of each academic term.

Turnitin.com: Text matching software (Turnitin®) may be used to screen assignments in this course. Turnitin® is used to verify that all materials and sources in assignments are documented. Students' submissions are stored on a U.S. server, therefore students must be given an alternative (e.g., scaffolded assignment or annotated bibliography), if they are concerned about their privacy and/or security. Students will be given due notice, in the first week of the term and/or at the time assignment details are provided, about arrangements and alternatives for the use of Turnitin in this course.

It is the responsibility of the student to notify the instructor if they, in the first week of term or at the time assignment details are provided, wish to submit the alternate assignment.

Coronavirus Information

The COVID-19 Information website provides updated information on COVID-19 and guidance for accommodations due to COVID-19.

Mental Health Support (optional)

Everyone needs a support system. We encourage you to seek out mental health supports and resources when you need them. You can reach out to Campus Wellness and learn about the services available to promote your mental health and well-being.

Territorial Acknowledgement

Purpose: to acknowledge Indigenous peoples’ presence and land rights, to recognize that we benefit from the land, to prompt reflection, in the spirit of Truth and Reconciliation.

“We acknowledge that we live and work on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabeg, and Haudenosaunee peoples. The University of Waterloo is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land promised to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River.”