1. Playtesting of Game #1: 45 Minutes
   1. Observe how the players interpret the instructions.
   2. Begin to participate as a reflective player (talk about why it's fun, why it's boring, etc.).
   3. Begin to develop a culture of helpful critique (how can I make it better?) for improving each other's games.
   4. Iteration Strategies (now, actually make it better).
2. Introduce a productive definition of games and some vocabulary: 20 Minutes
   1. Introduce the experiential nature of games.

This was contributed to me by Devin Monnens. It's a link to an interview with the head of Nintendo, Iwata-san, where he discusses Miyamoto-san's definitions of "idea" and goals for "design". I'll include a snippet, but it's worth chasing the link. Shigeru Miyamoto created Donkey Kong, all of the Super Mario Titles, and all of the Legend of Zelda titles for Nintendo. Miyamoto-san has made some of the most important and the most fun videogames in history. When he speaks, game designers listen:

Overall exhaustion has me moving more slowly than I'd like. I'm at the Digtial Games Research Association international conference in Tokyo, Japan. I'll be on a panel organized by Games for Change, where I'll be presenting some introductory information about P4 to an international audience of game researchers and creators. I'm attending sessions that will be of interest to our teaching partners in Denver, as well as to game development students in general. I'll try to transcribe notes that I've written on paper, and will then try to write new notes directly to the blog.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/supervaffel/sets/72157601703433031/

The link above takes you to a set of photos from the successful defense of Gonzalo Frasca's doctoral dissertation. Doctor Frasca is the creator of September 12th, found on his website http://www.newsgaming.com/ and is one of the earliest proponents for the use of videogames as a medium for expression and political speech. His masters thesis, Videogames of the Oppressed, is available on his website: http://www.ludology.org/articles/thesis/

1. Rules
   1. constraints
      1. formal constraints
      2. conceptual constraints