Gameplay Activities

In-Class Play Sessions

Throughout the term we will be engaging in critical play sessions during class time to explore, experiment with, analyze, and critique a range of digital and analog games. The embodied and affective dimensions of play can elicit powerful feelings — of joy, animosity, or even vulnerability — which students may not usually encounter in the classroom.

Our gameplay activities are designed to furnish a critical perspective on games as culture, and we will strive to create an environment for exploring alternate play practices that embrace difference. As such, our gameplay activities should be undertaken in a critically engaged spirit that welcomes participation from players of all backgrounds and from all levels of gaming experience or ability — these activities are never about winning.

Course Games List

The course's center of gravity is the role-playing game (RPG): students will engage with RPGs across multiple forms — journaling games, BoB-style games, traditional tabletop RPGs, social-deduction games, and computer RPGs — alongside a small number of non-RPG titles that nonetheless ground the course's methodological work. All games and rulebooks will be made available as PDFs via the course Canvas page.

NOTE: not every game listed below will receive a full play session in class. Some will anchor extended engagement across multiple class meetings; others will be demoed, featured briefly, or referenced as design inspiration without full play. The list captures the games students should expect to encounter across the semester — as primary play objects, as design models, or as critical reference points.

Featured Games

Wanderhome: Wanderhome is a pastoral fantasy role-playing game about traveling animal-folk, the world they inhabit, and the way the seasons change. It is a game filled with grassy fields, mossy shrines, herds of chubby bumblebees, opossums in sundresses, salamanders with suspenders, starry night skies, and the most beautiful sunsets you can imagine. You might be a tamarin who dances with small and forgotten gods, a leporine mail carrier who relies on moths to get packages where they belong, a little lizard with a big heart and a mysterious past, or a near-endless number of other thrilling possibilities.

Thousand-Year-Old Vampire: In Thousand Year Old Vampire you chronicle the many centuries of a vampire's existence, beginning with the loss of mortality and ending with inevitable destruction. Prompt-driven play and simple resource tracking provide easy rules for exploring your character's human failings, villainous acts, and surprising victories. Expect gut-churning decisions and irreconcilable acts. The game mechanics are simple and intuitive. Play progresses semi-randomly through a book of Prompts which let you explore your vampire's wants and needs, resolve problems, and chart the decline into senescence.

Harlem Unbound: New York City. Prohibition is in full swing and bootleggers are living high. African-Americans flee the oppressive South for greener pastures, creating a new culture in Harlem. The music of Fats Waller and Duke Ellington pours out of the city's windows, while women in stylish skirts and silk stockings, and men in white gloves and Chesterfield coats crowd the sidewalks. There's a feeling of possibility in the air, like never before. But, even in this land of promise, Harlem is a powder keg, ready to explode. While classes and cultures collide, the horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos lurk beneath the streets, creeping through dark alleys and hidden doorways to infect the hopes and aspirations of the unwary.

Blood on the Clocktower: Blood on the Clocktower is a game of murder and mystery, lies and logic, deduction and deception for five-to-twenty courageous players and one devious storyteller. A social game played in person, seated in a circle, each player receives either a 'good' or 'evil' token with their unique character on it. Good players share information to solve the mystery whilst evil players lie about who they are and what they know. The good team wins if they can piece together their knowledge, trust each other, and execute the demon. The evil team wins if the demon can sow distrust, evade detection, and wipe out the village.

Disco Elysium: The Final Cut: You're a detective with a unique skill system at your disposal and a whole city to carve your path across. Interrogate unforgettable characters, crack murders or take bribes. Become a hero or an absolute disaster of a human being.