ENGLIT 0732 - TABLETOP GAMING

Minimum Credits: 3
Maximum Credits: 3
The current moment is frequently referred to as the "golden age of tabletop games" (a category that encompasses board games, card games, and role playing games), marked by significant innovation in the form, an explosion of tabletop game popularity, and a significant online culture devoted to this most offline of media. Why are analog games flourishing as never before in a culture supposedly saturated by and enamored with the digital? How do these games function as emergent narrative structures? How do they respond to digital modalities, either by implicitly opposing their aesthetics and informatics or incorporating various digital dynamics and remediating them into offline, tactile form? This course will examine the narrative, social, and material dynamics of games that have emerged within the era of ubiquitous digital media, yet employ analog elements as either a rejection of the digital, a critical response to it, or an exploration of the hybrid potentials of analog-digital systems. We will also examine hybrid games that incorporate both digital and analog elements, such as early video games that promiscuously combined the two, or more recent digital games that "spill into" analog space and incorporate analog dynamics into their hybrid simulations. How do these games frame the relationship between the analog and the digital, the body and code, open systems and closed worlds? In the course of this adventure through narrative, emergent social dynamics, and simulated worlds, we'll play innovative tabletop games from recent years, some older games that have been remediated in various ways, early video games, and recent innovations in hybrid analog-digital games. We'll consider how the narrative architectures and gameplay mechanics employed by these games enable emergent storytelling and critical simulation at the same time, reflecting on and probing identity, social dynamics, traumatic histories, and ethics in an era of digital media. Game design will play a significant role in a series of assignments. No prior gaming or game design experience is required.
Academic Career: Undergraduate
Course Component: Seminar
Grade Component: LG/SNC Elective Basis

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