Here at ProfHacker, we’re always looking at new things to try. The options can be overwhelming, and as Michelle Moravec noted in her look at digital humanities tools, sometimes it’s hard to know what to invest time in. Last week, Mark Danger Chen tweeted a link to a post by Adriel Wallick: “Make many games, learn many things.” The approach comes from an article on Gamasutra by Rami Ismail on making “A Game A Week.” The method is more about getting moving than creating anything “good”–one week is a reasonable amount of time to invest in something that might fail spectacularly.
Here’s an overview of Ismail’s rules:
Start Monday morning, finish Sunday night. Use anything, but make a game.
Put the game online. This ensures accountability.
Leave old games alone. Once it’s done, move on to something entirely new.
Mix it up. Change tools and genres every week.
Debrief. Write something, tweet something, learn something.
The philosophy behind making a game a week is one Rami Ismail compares to learning the art of pottery. He notes that after a year of making vases, the result will be better than the first vase, and adds:
The reasons for that are simple: one has more experience with success, and more experience with failure...Failure is generally not a problem unless you fail to learn from it. It is a problem when you’ve gambled everything on something you don’t actually have any experience for.
Mark’s tweet about this approach came at a good time for me: as I wrote last week, I’ve been thinking a lot about making things on a small scale as a way to explore ideas. I decided to start following the “game a week” rules as a way to structure my work in trying out some new genres and platforms. I’ve just wrapped up my first week, and the results aren’t pretty. But that doesn’t matter. Failure is a constant part of learning--the part we don’t always talk about enough once we’re at the front of the classroom. It’s a new week, and I’m moving on to the next idea.
Of course, this strategy isn’t really about games. It’s a way to embrace a learning curve and build a skillset, imitating structures many of us use in the classroom. Have you tried a structured creative exercise like making a game a week? Share your experience in the comments!
[Creative Commons Licensed Photo by JD Hancock]
