Playful Thinking

Module overview

Building upon the module Professional Contexts, this module features an exciting series of industry speaker events and debates to act as a catalyst to support investigative academic and journalist writing for and about Games. The research and final writing assignments should be directly relevant to your work within the module Major Project GDA. Within this module you will produce two different pieces of writing inspired by, and in the style of, the MIT Playful Thinking and UAL Spark journal. Your texts will be in the form of an academic journal piece and a summary journalistic piece. The journalistic piece will be the shorter of the two and should engage a wider audience towards concerns and/or commentary on Games Design & Art.

Aims and Objectives

Learning Outcomes

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

demonstrate organisational skills;
Demonstrate that you can articulate and communicate in a professional manner appropriate to the chosen topic.
identify, select and draw upon a wide range of visual, printed and electronic sources.

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

recognise useful links between contextual data.
formulate and develop an idea and broadly research its context;

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

ways of communicating an informed and critical understanding of your work in the context of the your study.
the relevance of key discipline-specific theoretical and contextual themes to your work;

Learning and Teaching

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include: •lectures; •seminars. Learning activities include: •discussion; •Essay and Journalism Writing; •critical reflection connecting theory and practice; •independent research and reflection; •industry 1-1 discussions; •Academic Skills Hub; • Careers Service.

Study time
Type	Hours
Lecture	8
Follow-up work	14
Completion of assessment task	62
Wider reading or practice	40
Seminar	16
Preparation for scheduled sessions	10
Total study time	150

Resources & Reading list

Internet Resources

Blackboard.

Digital Culture & Society.

Panopto Recordings (via Blackboard).

Mobile Media & Communication.

Gamasutra.

Games Criticism.

Lynda.com (via Blackboard).

New media & Society.

Games and Culture Journal.

Academic Skills Hub.

DiGRA (Digital Games Research Association).

Textbooks

Juul, J. (2013). The Art of Failure. MIT Press.

Costikyan, G. (2013). Uncertainty in Games. MIT Press.

Sharp, J. (2015). Works of Game. MIT Press.

Isbister, K. (2016). How Games Move Us. MIT Press.

Sicart, M. (2014). Play Matters. MIT Press.

Assessment

Formative

This is how we’ll give you feedback as you are learning. It is not a formal test or exam.

Essay proposal

Assessment Type: Formative
Feedback: Formative feedback is given during the module.
Final Assessment: No
Group Work: No

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Breakdown
Method	Percentage contribution
Essay	100%

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Breakdown
Method	Percentage contribution
Essay	100%

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Breakdown
Method	Percentage contribution
Essay	100%

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External