Applied Game Design

Teacher:

• Prof. Fabrizio Fornari

ESSE3 Link

• Applied Game Design - AY 2024/25

Degrees:

• MSc in Computer Science (LM-18)

Scheduling of Lectures:

• Scheduling is available at the following link

Exams:

• 20/06/2025 09:00
• 04/07/2025 09:00
• 18/07/2025 09:00
• 25/07/2025 09:00
• 19/09/2025 09:00
• 26/09/2025 09:00
• 06/02/2026 09:00
• 20/02/2026 09:00

Lectures Mode

• Lectures will be delivered in different modalities: frontal lectures, seminars from experts of game design, and practical exercises

Materials:

• Students are requested to bring their laptop to each lecture

Course Slides

• 00 - AGD - Course introduction - 07-03-2025
• 01 - AGD - Game Definition, Game Design, Game Designer, Introspection, Game Report, Essential Experience, 4 Basic Elements - 14-03-2025
• 02 - AGD - Example of The 4 Basic Elements - 21-03-2025
• 03 - AGD - Example of The 4 Basic Elements, The Theme in a Game, Gameful Design, Gamification, Applied Games, Example of Applied Games, Chocolate-Broccoli - 28-03-2025
• 04 - AGD - Game Design Process, Game Concept Document, Game Design Document - 11-04-2025
• 05 - AGD - Recap Previous Lectures and Game Related Tools - 09-05-2025
• 06 - AGD - Practice with Applied Games and the Venue - 16-05-2025
• 07 - AGD - Discussion about tested Applied Games, Why develop a game?, Advertising and Advergames, The Pitch - 23-05-2025
• 08 - AGD - Virtual Reality Seminar and Experiences
• 09 - AGD - Virtual Reality Experiences, Get an Audience, Pitch It!, Surprise Mechanics
• 10 - AGD - Recap Lectures and End of Second Side Quest

Recordings

• 00 - AGD - Course introduction - 07-03-2025
• 01 - AGD - Game Definition, Game Design, Game Designer, Introspection, Game Report, Essential Experience, 4 Basic Elements - 14-03-2025
• 02 - Ambra Ferrari's Seminar - 02 - AGD - Example of The 4 Basic Elements - 21-03-2025
• Luigi Caputo's Seminar - Niccolò Vacca's Thesis Presentation - 03 - AGD - Example of The 4 Basic Elements, The Theme in a Game, Gameful Design, Gamification, Applied Games, Example of Applied Games, Chocolate-Broccoli -28-03-2025
• 04 - AGD - Game Design Process, Game Concept Document, Game Design Document - 11-04-2025
• 05 - AGD - Recap Previous Lectures and Game Related Tools Simone Granata's Seminar - 09-05-2025 05 - AGD - Game Related Tools - 09-05-2025
• Doris Rusch's Seminar - 16-05-202506 - AGD - Practice with Applied Games and the Venue - 16-05-2025
• 07 - AGD - Discussion about tested Applied Games, Why develop a game?, Advertising and Advergames, The Pitch - 23-05-2025
• 08 - AGD - Biagio Ambrosio's Seminar | Additional VR Experiences
• 09 - AGD - Virtual Reality Experiences, Get an Audience, Pitch It!, Surprise Mechanics

Additional Material:

• Students Background Questionnaire
• Game Design Guiding Questions

In-Class Quests

• 07-03-2025 In Class Quest 1: White Paper Esports and Gaming in Italy
  1. Scroll the White Paper (you find it here)
  2. Select one of the messages reported there (the one that captured your attention) and write your name and the page of the message here
  3. Read it carefully
  4. Describe it to the class!
• 23-03-2025 In Class Quest 2: The First that Comes to Mind!
  1. Open a Spreadsheet
  2. Write in a left cell the Game Aspect mentioned
  3. Write in the right cell the first game that comes to your mind that has that aspect
  4. At the end upload the Spreadsheet on this GDrive folder
• 11-04-2025 In Class Quest 3: A game that made history
  1. Read the Diablo Game Concept Document
  2. Try Diablo
  3. Analyse the experience and report for any differences:
  4. Hear from David Brevik
• 11-04-2025 In Class Quest 4: The GDD Reverse Writing Game..!
  1. Choose your favourite game and try to gather enough information to write a GDD about it!
  2. Rule of the game:
     1. 1 hour of time
     2. Answer all the Game Design Guiding Questions avilable on GDrive
     3. The document should resamble a real GDD (you have access to many examples already)
     4. You cannot choose a game which GDD is already available
     5. The GDDs will have to be uploaded on GDrive before the time runs out!
• 16-05-2025 In Class Quest 5: Time to Play the Game!
  1. Access the following