Umm, okay. Better late than never, right? >_>; Where’s a list of my classes…

Fall Semester

CTIN 541: Design for Interactive Media with Balsamo, Anne and Bolas, Mark

There was a lot of reading in this class. A lot of which… I never got around to. ;_; And sometimes Anne talked about stuff that I couldn’t always wrap my head around. On the other hand… we got a whole lot of hands-on exercises that, I think, helped expand my preconceived notions of design in general. And even though I didn’t really like working with foamcore, I do still think it was a good thing to have at least a brief run-in with. >_>

Plus the class gave me an excuse to see Wicked. :X And Mark is freaking hilarious all the damn time. ::lol::

CTIN 534: Experiments in Interactivity I with Hoberman, Perry

Hmm. This was largely a develop-your-technical-skills course. I had a lot of fun with some of the Processing exercises, though it all seems kind of moot now because Flash is likely the better prototyping tool in the end. Oh well. We didn’t get much hardware experience, which I’m both glad and sad over (ew arduino!)… but I really, really liked my final project for this course, which was ChatScape. Even though it doesn’t work now (thank god I took video), it was an interesting application and I do so love having my little ATDP mob help me out on school assignments… :)

CTCS 505: Survey of Interactive Media with Anderson, Steven

Umm. ::lol:: An all theoretical class, to balance out the all technical one, I suppose. It was tedious at times, but we were exposed to all manner of … things. (I mean, now I know more about David Cronenberg’s work than I ever wanted to know. Seriously.) The game demos were fun, though, if a little poorly organized/managed… ::lol:: And uh… I was able to use my final project in 541 as a final project here too, so win. :P

I like Steve, though. He’s funny/cool even with his minor obsession with SecondLife… :x

Spring Semester

CTIN 544: Experiments in Interactivity II with Kratky, Andreas

Gaaahhh. XP I’m not a (making) film buff, so pretty much all the projects in this class aggravated me, though I did eventually find something I kind of liked to do for each of them in the end. They always fell kind of short of my own personal expectations, but I have high standards, I guess. At least I got to shoot WoW machinima for one of them… that one came out okay.

One of the cool things in this class was the actual introduction to the real film process… we had all these mini demos of how things worked in an actual film studio, etc. Those were enlightening and intimidating and … tiring all at once. But I have a newfound respect for the cameramen and the light and boom people and god that must be a thankless job… :x So that was educational… at least it taught me that I never wanted to work in that industry. >_>

Plus plus plus! Elevator Park came out of this class, so it couldn’t have been a total waste. XD

CTWR 518: Introduction to Interactive Writing with De Meo, Paul

I liked this class, though I’m not sure why. I really did like Paul, even though he was kind of … um…. optimistic… and cynical… at the same time. (is that possible? ::lol::) We had some relatively basic writing exercises which were… okay. But the bigger assignments were neat… design your own theme park (Tronland!), one expanded fiction (SotC), one original fiction and then a walkthrough for your original fiction.

And I REALLY liked what I came up with for my original fiction, too… that would totally make an awesome sandbox game. :P

CTIN 488: Game Design Workshop with Swain, Chris

Thiiiiiis class was good. Hard, but good. Learned a ton, lots of good experiences… and bad ones, which end up being good experiences because you always learn more from bad experiences than good ones. >_> There wasn’t a whole lot to the theoretical stuff that I didn’t already have some idea about, but it was kind of nice to have terms to put to everything (which is what the class is largely about, since game design is still kind of new and everyone has different terminology to describe the same things, so it’s hard to communicate at the present).

And the actual prototyping projects were invaluable… not to mention frustrating. It’s really very hard to design an original game that’s fun to play. T_T; But I also really liked the play experiments, because it exposed me to a ton of interesting games and developed my interest in the world as a whole. Before this class, I had only really played Settlers of Catan and now I feel much better versed in board games. :x

This class (and the program in general) also got me really thinking about how I need to play a larger variety of games, so I vowed to play one new game every month… a promise that has been sometimes difficult to keep (just because it’s hard to get my fiscally-conscious paws on new and interesting games), but I think it has been really educational as a result. Even if it has stuck me with a ton of unfinished games on the backburner. -__-;

Oh. But the quizzes were killer. >_>

WHOO, I DID IT. That was fun. :X