Entry requirements

A Bachelor's degree, equivalent to a Swedish Kandidatexamen, from an internationally recognised university, and Introduction to Transformative Game Design, 7.5 credits, and Transformative Game Design 1, 7.5 credits. Proficiency in English equivalent to the Swedish upper secondary course English 6.

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of Cultivating Transformational Communities, the student should be able to:

Knowledge of the Field: Discuss topics, themes, and theories related to building and managing communities featuring transformative analog role-playing games with an emphasis on safety and inclusion.

Game Design, Safety Design and Playtesting: Design, experience, iterate, and critique role-playing games as well as safety, and analyze community building practices related to transformative analog role-playing games.

Academic, Professional, and Reflective Writing: Compose written texts and other communication materials on game design, safety practices and community building related to transformative analog role-playing games in various formats for distinct audiences.

Content

Building on the work done in previous transformative game design courses (Intro to Transformative Game Design, Transformative Game Design 1 and 2), this course explores the potential of play communities as containers for personal and social change. Students will study various playful spaces and their affordances for exploring identity, creating empowering social systems, and approaching complex problems. This course will examine  best practices from leisure, therapeutic, and educational playful communities with an emphasis on establishing and maintaining safety to explore edges for growth. This course will emphasize the importance of intentionality, goal-setting, transparency, agreements, accountability, and responsibility in establishing functional group dynamics.

This course will also emphasize principles of consent, explicitly establishing social contracts that define the container around play. Central to this discussion will be issues of social justice, diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. The course will emphasize facilitating off-game negotiation, communication, integration, and processing. Students will create a game for transformative impacts related to inclusion, along with the safety design-, and community building plan for a previous game design project based upon academic and practical theories.

Instruction

The course is delivered through asynchronous group discussions, lectures, and flexibly scheduled synchronous group meetings. Curricular materials may include some or all of the following: video-recordings, research artides, popular texts, game design documents, etc. Students will create tangible game design related projects (mainly within analog role-playing games), alone or in teams, and play and test their games. Students will show and critically discuss the results with their peers, the teacher, and other researchers/stakeholders where indicated. Feedback and guidance on writing will be provided throughout the course.

Assessment

The basis for assessment is the students' active participation in course-related activities, presenting regular progress of agreed-upon deliverables and adhering to deadlines. Moreover, the students should meet regularly with the teacher, following through on directions and conducting themselves professionally throughout the course. Deliverables include oral presentations and written assignments.

If there are special reasons for doing so, an examiner may make an exception from the method of assessment indicated and allow a student to be assessed by another method. An example of special reasons might be a certificate regarding special pedagogical support from the University´s disability coordinator.

Other directives

The course replaces 5SD318, Cultivating Transformative Communities, 7.5 credits