ABSTRACT
The idea for this book emerged out of a course I teach at the University of Minnesota School of Architecture. Design Games is the title of the course and my goal in creating it was to teach architecture students how to develop software. On the face of it, this seems like a rather odd thing to do in a school of architecture. My students had no prior experience building software and were not even particularly interested in learning the skill. Yet registration for the course was enthusiastic. Why? The reason has to do with some not-so-subtle subterfuge on my part. I structured the course entirely around video gaming. The very first assignment required students to play a video game and report back to the class their experience. This is a great way to start a semester. Maybe a bit too great considering the rest of the course involves building software, a difficult task for anyone to learn, let alone designers. Yet the students who take the course invariably achieve amazing results in just a few weeks. They leave the course empowered by a new skill and a new way of thinking about the process of design. This is due to the type of software they make.
