The second lecture for Game Design Concepts is up, with some interesting bits. First off, I was wrong and registration is now closed---this, however, only precludes participation in the wiki and forums, as the blog is still free and open to anyone. The lecture discussed rapid prototyping and iteration, which formed the basis for the 15-minute exercise, but were not discussed at that point. To impress this idea upon us, Ian Schreiber (the course instructor), had us playtest and iterate our game. I took a couple play-throughs and iterations and came up with Thieves' Den prototype 2 which is my previous blog post. This game had some significant changes, and played much better than the previos version and had specified setup, progress, and resolution rules as discussed in the lecture. It, again, needs more iterations of design and playtesting if it is to become a blockbuster, but that isn't my goal. Yet.
An interesting note, the methodology diagrams were essentially the same as those discussed in my introduction to data structures class, suggesting that most fields of endeavour have similar processes guiding them through creating a product.