CTIN 464 Game Studies Seminar
Units: 2.0
Spring 2016—Monday 16:00-17:50
Location: SCI 207Instructor: Kiki Benzon
Office: SCI 101C
Office Hours: by appointment
Contact Info: kbenzon@cinema.usc.edu
Course DescriptionThis course focuses on games and narrative. We will consider the ways in which various game types—board games, video games, LARPs, sports, parlor games, immersive/interactive theatre, etc.—involve and invoke narrative structures like character, story, world, and conflict. We will also analyze the representation of games in novels, films, and other narrative texts, and consider how games can function as systems for generating narratives in art and in the culture at large.

Learning Objectives

Students will emerge from this course with

• a refined understanding of the mutually informing discourses of narratology and game studies
• enhanced methods for critically assessing ludo-narrative work
• an awareness of the protocols and procedures of game design and play employed to create works in cinema, literature, and the visual arts
• an appreciation of games as expressions and critiques of cultural and historical narratives
• an understanding of genres and narrative modes—horror, detective fiction, science fiction, adventure, etc.—and their expression in games
• design competency in Twine or other interactive narrative software

Required Readings and Supplementary Materials

Readings will be supplied as PDFs or web links. Students should be prepared to spend between $30 and $50 on video games as required by the syllabus and their chosen presentation topic.

Description and Assessment of Assignments

On designated weeks, students should email to the instructor a brief critical comment (3% each, 15% total) related to the assigned readings. These comments, which must be submitted by midnight on the day before class (i.e., Sunday evening), will be compiled, distributed to everyone in the class, and discussed in class. There will be six opportunities to write five comments.

For the presentation (25%), students will choose a work to contextualize and analyze. Presentations (about 45 minutes) should consider the narrative significance of the work, offer insight into the work’s themes and design, and generate a thoughtful class discussion. Potential topics are denoted with asterisks on the Weekly Schedule (below).

Working with Twine, students will create a short interactive narrative (15%); depending on class preference, these narratives may be shared with one another and/or remarked upon by an author/practitioner of interactive writing.

The final essay (30%) constitutes the major deliverable for the course. Assignment details and suggested topics will be distributed, but students are encouraged to write on an aspect of ludo-narrativity that is of interest to them.

Participation (15%) is an important component of this course, as students will discuss readings, share games experience, and provide feedback on presentations and creative work. The participation mark will be based on the student’s level of engagement with ideas and themes in the course, as demonstrated by thoughtful and constructive contributions to class discussion and questions posed to presenters and guest speakers.

Grading Breakdown

Assignment	Points	% of Grade
5 critical comments	15	15%
presentation	25	25%
interactive narrative	15	15%
essay	30	30%
participation	15	15%
TOTAL	100	100

Assignment Submission Policy

Critical comments may be submitted in the body of an email message to the instructor. The final essay should be submitted as an email attachment in PDF form; the PDF must be named by your last name, i.e., Smith.pdf.

Missing an Assignment Deadline, Incompletes:

The only acceptable excuses for missing an assignment deadline or taking an incomplete in the course are personal illness or a family emergency. Students must inform the instructor before the assignment due date and present verifiable evidence in order for a deadline extension to be granted. Students who wish to take incompletes must also present documentation of the problem to the instructor before final grades are due.

For assignments turned in after the assignment deadline without prior permission from the instructor, a penalty will be imposed equal to 10% of the total available points for the assignment, for each day or part of a day that the assignment is late, up to a maximum of seven days.

 Attendance Policy

Punctual attendance at all classes is mandatory. Students arriving more than five minutes late to three classes, more than ten minutes late to a single class, or leaving early, will be marked as having an unexcused absence from class, unless prior permission has been obtained from the instructor. The following guidelines are from the Interactive Media & Games Division handbook regarding absences and grading and apply to all students.

Guidelines for absences affecting grading

• Two unexcused absences: lowers grade one full grade point (for example, from A to B)
• Three unexcused absences: lowers grade two full grade points
• Four or more unexcused absences: request to withdraw from course (instructor’s discretion)

Excused absences are:

• Illness (with a doctor’s verification)
• Family or personal emergency (with verification)

Social media, including text messaging and internet messaging, are excluded from class unless explicitly permitted by the instructor. A 0.5% grade reduction will result from each occurrence of a student being found using them.

Diversity

In making games and interactive media in a professional and ethical way, it is important that you consider diversity. When looking at your projects, you should consider who is depicted and how this work will impact others. What kinds of individuals and communities are represented in your work? What point of view does your work express? This class my assist you in learning how to make work that includes diverse viewpoints, and may discuss racial, religious, gender and sexual orientation issues in the context of games and interactive media.

Course Schedule: A Weekly Breakdown

See next page.

	Topics/Daily Activities	Readings and Homework (game titles listed should be played, or watched as a play-through, before class) Asterisks denote student presentation topics	Deliverables /Due Dates
Week 1 January 11	introduction / ludo-narrative debate / critical approaches to games	Bell, John Michael. ‘Roger Ebert was wrong: Video games are the new novels.” Salon. May 2, 2014. http://www.salon.com/2014/05/02/roger_ebert_was_wrong_video_games_are_the_new_novels_partner/
Week 2 January 18	Martin Luther King Day– No Class
Week 3 January 25	narrative theory	Chatman, Seymour. “Introduction.” Story and discourse: narrative structure in fiction and film. (Cornell, 1978): 15-42. Barthes, Roland. “Introduction,” “2. The levels of meaning” “1. Towards a structural status of character.” “Introduction to the structural analysis of narratives.” New Literary History, 6.2 (1975): 237-239; 241-243; 256-258. Ryan, Marie Laure. “Computer Games as Narrative.” Avatars of Story. (Minnesota, 2006): 181-203.	Critical comment evening before (3%)
Week 4 February 1	narrative / video games	Jenkins, Henry. “Game design as narrative architecture.” First person: new media as story, performance, and game. Wardrip-Fruin & Harrigan Eds. (MIT Press, 2004): 118-130. Juul, Jesper. “Games Telling Stories? A Brief Note on Games and Narratives.” Game Studies. 1.1. (2001). http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/juul-gts/#top Simons, Jan. “Narrative, Games, and Theory.” Game studies. 7.1 (2007).	Critical comment due evening before (3%)
Week 5 February 8	agency / metanarrative	Murray, Janet. “Agency.” Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. (MIT, 1997): 126-153. Deadpool—Jerardo Perez The Stanley Parable (Galactic Café, 2011)—Thomas Kelleher Guest Speaker: Jeff Watson	Critical comment due evening before (3%)
Week 6 February 15	President’s Day – No Class
Week 7 February 22	interactive fiction / digital literature / Twine I	Montfort, Nick. “Riddle Machines: The History and Nature of Interactive Fiction.” A Companion to Digital Literary Studies. (Blackwell, 2008). Galatea (Emily Short, 2000); All I Want is for All of my Friends to Become Insanely Powerful (Porpentine, 2013) Pry (Tender Claws, 2015)	Critical comment due evening before (3%)
Week 8 February 29	ludic creativity / Twine II	Motte, Warren. “Constraint on the Move.” Poetics Today 30.4 (2009): 719–735. poeticstoday.dukejournals.org. Web. Oulipo Fluxus Dogma 95	Critical comment due evening before (3%)
Week 9 March 7	cinema under constraints	Screening: The Five Obstructions (2001) Lars Von Trier 90 min. SCI 106
Week 10 March 14	Spring Break – No Class
Week 11 March 21	unlocking game narratives	Gone Home (Fulbright, 2013)—Drew Welch Her Story (Sam Barlow,  2015)—Alex Hoffman Shadow of the Collosus (Sony Computer Entertainment, 2005)—Colton Stock
Week 12 March 28	unfolding game narratives	Siren (Sony Computer Entertainment, 2003, 2012)—Drew B-S. Half-Life (Valve Corporation, 1998) —Thomas Duguay FTL:  Faster Than Light—Shing-Hoi Lau Shadow of the Collosus (Sony Computer Entertainment, 2005)—Colton Stock	Twine Assignment due (15%)
Week 13 April 4	narratives of detection / period / culture / horror	Chandler, Raymond. “Goldfish.” LA Noire (Rockstar Games, 2011)—Sam Salerno PT—Valerie Lin Oxenfree—Napoleon Martinez Silent Hill 2 (Konami, 2001)—Chao Chen
Week 14 April 11	ludic representation / levelling-up	Screening: Inception (2010) Christopher Nolan 148 min. (note: class will be 150 min. and may be in a different room)
Week 15 April 18	adaptation	Carr, Diane et al. “Film, Adaptation and Computer Games.” Computer Games: Text, Narrative and Play. Diane Carr et al., eds. (Polity, 2007): 149-161. Thoreau, Henry. “Economy.” Walden. (Merrill, 1910). http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/walden/hdt05.html Walden: The Game (USC Game Innovation Lab, 2015) Alien: Isolation—Thomas Hurlow Guest speaker: Tracy Fullerton	Critical comment due evening before (3%)
Week 16 April 25	speculation / alternate futures / science fiction	Bradbury, Ray. “A Sound of Thunder.” Fallout 4 (Bathesda, 2015)—Bryant Young Screening: The Man in the High Tower. Episode 1.1 “The New World” (2014) 61 min.
FINALS WEEK			Essay due (30%)

Statement on Academic Conduct and Support Systems

Academic Conduct

Plagiarism – presenting someone else’s ideas as your own, either verbatim or recast in your own words – is a serious academic offense with serious consequences.  Please familiarize yourself with the discussion of plagiarism in SCampus in Section 11, Behavior Violating University Standardshttps://scampus.usc.edu/1100-behavior-violating-university-standards-and-appropriate-sanctions/. Other forms of academic dishonesty are equally unacceptable. See additional information in SCampus and university policies on scientific misconduct, http://policy.usc.edu/scientific-misconduct/.

Discrimination, sexual assault, and harassment are not tolerated by the university. You are encouraged to report any incidents to the Office of Equity and Diversity http://equity.usc.edu/ or to the Department of Public Safety http://capsnet.usc.edu/department/department-public-safety/online-forms/contact-us.  This is important for the safety whole USC community. Another member of the university community – such as a friend, classmate, advisor, or faculty member – can help initiate the report, or can initiate the report on behalf of another person. The Center for Women and Men http://www.usc.edu/student-affairs/cwm/ provides 24/7 confidential support, and the sexual assault resource center webpage sarc@usc.edu describes reporting options and other resources.

Support Systems

A number of USC’s schools provide support for students who need help with scholarly writing.  Check with your advisor or program staff to find out more.  Students whose primary language is not English should check with the American Language Institute http://dornsife.usc.edu/ali, which sponsors courses and workshops specifically for international graduate students. The Office of Disability Services and Programs http://sait.usc.edu/academicsupport/centerprograms/dsp/home_index.htmlprovides certification for students with disabilities and helps arrange the relevant accommodations. If an officially declared emergency makes travel to campus infeasible, USC Emergency Information http://emergency.usc.edu/will provide safety and other updates, including ways in which instruction will be continued by means of blackboard, teleconferencing, and other technology.

Disruptive Student Behavior:

Behavior that persistently or grossly interferes with classroom activities is considered disruptive behavior and may be subject to disciplinary action. Such behavior inhibits other students’ ability to learn and an instructor’s ability to teach. A student responsible for disruptive behavior may be required to leave class pending discussion and resolution of the problem and may be reported to the Office of Student Judicial Affairs for disciplinary action.

Syllabus Updates:

This syllabus is liable to change up to the beginning of class and possibly over the semester. Please check the posted syllabus regularly, and note all changes that are shared by the instructor in class.