Video Game Studies

This course explores various online producer/consumer communities including fan fiction writers, chiptune music producers, game modders, glitch artists, zinesters, theorycrafters, and more! Together we will discover communities of practice, inquire as to what motivates their participants, and hopefully find a little space online where you too can contribute to the thriving body of human creativity and knowledge found in these communities.

In this course, we will explore how the design of modern board games differs from the classic family games with which many of us grew up (Monopoly, Risk, etc.), as well as the role that technical writing performs in facilitating this unique form of play.

This course explores the ethical dilemmas that exist where human beings, information objects, and information systems interact. The course introduces students to a variety of ethical models from historical and cross-cultural perspectives and then explores the relevance of these models to a variety of new and emerging technologies that are inherently social in their construction and use.

This course teaches students digital literacy - characterized by a broad understanding of how technology works, its inherent biases and ethical implications, and its transformative effect on people's lives - with an emphasis on a more healthful, equitable, and just world. Weekly topics include software, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, virtual reality, games, and 'smart cities'.

This course is designed to explore the visual cultures of North Korea. We will examine different mediums such as art, architecture, murals, posters, stamps, illustrations, animation, photography, film, opera, mass games, museum, cemetery, and processions/parades.

This course examines the interaction between (un)healthy media use and (un)healthy sleep. What can we learn about healthy sleep from looking at the media? What can we learn about our media use from studying sleep? Does media use affect sleep positively or negatively? Are there effects in the opposite direction? In other words, does sleep affect media use? This course will examine what research has shown about media and sleep, but we will also examine how this applies to our own (media and sleep) habits.

From television and film to comics and video games to music, apps, and websites, popular culture includes many formats and genres; everyone has a favorite. But what is the difference between liking (or disliking) a piece of popular culture and studying it? This course is a survey of theories, methods, and sites used in the scholarly analysis of popular culture objects and texts. By experimenting with these different tools of analysis, students will come to understand the definition of popular culture and why its functions and meaning are significant.

Computing provides new ways for humans to express themselves, interact, and communicate. Students in this course study the ways in which computing has been used to create and express, and then learn how to use computation to create pictures, sounds, videogames, language, and Web pages. They will learn how to generate and control these modalities through user interactivity in order to blend these in video games and Web pages. Students will learn computational concepts and write programs with a focus on purpose and meaning.

Why are videogames fun? The answer isn't as obvious as you might think. Good games draw you in, teach you how to succeed, and keep you engaged with a "just right" level of challenge. Most importantly, players *learn* while playing a well-designed game. Why isn't school like that? This class takes a hard look at videogames, a hard look at education, and considers ways that each can be improved to maximize learning.

This seminar revolves around Place Out Of Time (POOT), a web-based character-playing simulation involving college, high school, and middle school students. You will have a dual role in the simulation: you will play a character yourself, and you will also act as a project leader and mentor to the younger participants.

In this course, students develop their skills by implementing small-to-medium sized XR applications utilizing major game engines like Unity3D and Unreal. The curriculum emphasizes good programming design patterns as well as the design of engaging and socially-conscious user experiences. involves students in a variety of non-engineering disciplines such as art, music, and psychology. Students also learn to conduct user testing, analyze feedback, work effectively in agile teams, and explore the implications of XR technologies through cultural critiques. The course culminates in a public showcase, where students exhibit their projects to large audiences, giving them a platform to explore and engage with the expanding XR industry.

Concepts and methods for the design and development of computer games. Topics include: history of games, 2D graphics and animation, sprites, 3D animation, binary space partition trees, software engineering, game design, interactive fiction, user interfaces, artificial intelligence, game SDK’s, networking, multi-player games, game development environments, commercialization of software.

An immersive experience in Game Engine Architecture, where students construct their own miniature game engines from scratch. This intensive, C++-focused course challenges students to add unique custom features to their engines while supporting modern, course-required functionalities. Throughout the course, students delve into architectural patterns, algorithms, and data structures essential for building expressive software. They also integrate industry-standard middleware like SDL and Box2D for windowing, physics, and audio, while mastering multi-platform, portable coding techniques. Additionally, students learn to write multi-language software, incorporating unmanaged host and managed guest languages like C++, Lua, and LuaBridge to optimize performance and streamline content creation. By studying existing game engines and their commonalities, students gain insight into the history and potential future of game engine development, including key prior art and lessons learned from engine-induced disasters.

This class is about academic composition, its rhetoric and practice, and critical thinking in and through writing. We will study the techniques and strategies that will help you translate your thoughts into words, refine and connect your ideas, and eventually build effective arguments around well-formulated questions. We will venture beyond our classroom from time to time and visit nearby museums and other learning sites—Museum of Art (UMMA), Museum of Natural History, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, Shapiro's Library Lab, and even the Computer and Video Game Archives (CVGA)—to expand our landscape of knowledge for survey and analysis.

Perhaps, during these trying times, you have found yourself reading, watching, playing, and listening to more media than you ever have before. If so, you are not alone! Books, TV shows, movies, video games, and music have made many of us realize what some of us have known all along: art (broadly conceived) saves. In this upper-level essay writing course, you will have the opportunity to explore how and why a particular sort of art that you love has saved, nourished, comforted, restored, excited, or otherwise delighted YOU, and many others, too.

This course introduces students to different ways of engaging critically with audiovisual media. Students will learn to analyze key aspects of film, television, and digital media, and to develop critical arguments about them that draw on different kinds of evidence. FTVM 150 is designed to enhance your critical literacy in film, television, and digital media, and your ability to create well-supported analyses and arguments about media and other cultural forms.

In this course, we will study how real-life medieval monuments and images appear in the imagined spaces of video games. We will learn about medieval Christian and Muslim art and cultures while critically discussing related medieval images in video games through some key concepts and theories, including ludology (the social and cultural study of games), Orientalism, religion, race, identity, and woman and gender studies.

This course looks at how Europe emerged from the margins of the world's stage in this period by examining events like the Crusades, the Black Death, and the invention of the printing press, the rise of institutions like monarchies, the Church, and human bondage, and by looking at long term changes to the medieval climate. We will also ask, who belonged to this emerging world and who was steadily excluded? Where did the idea of nations come from? And we will ask, what is the relationship between the real Middle Ages and the fantasy one that fills video games, white-supremacist politics, and the news media?

In this course, we will complicate and critique these depictions of Islam and Muslims by examining representations of Islam by Muslims and individuals from the Islamic world across diverse forms of contemporary cultural expression and consider the impact that more diverse representation can have on a local and global scale. We’ll examine works across media including the visual arts, film, literature, graphic novels, and even video games.

This course is about collaborative worldbuilding and fantasy storytelling, about imagining new realms and bringing powerful stories to life in them. We will explore what makes fantasy “fantasy” and what relationship it has to our lives: as escape from our despair, as complex mirror of our world, and as alternative vision of what’s possible. We will approach these questions from the point of view of both literature and tabletop roleplaying games.

Explore the industry practice of video games user research and game design. This course will put games user experience (UX) theory into practice through projects such as designing a video game. Students will come out of the course with a few portfolio pieces, including game design documentation and a pitch deck that will be pitched in-class.

This professor has taught a "Gaming for the Greater Good" class (ENG 100:650), which focuses on using programming skills to create real-world solutions to issues that have social relevance. He currently teaches EECS 495 - Software Development for Accessibility.

Prof. Fishman teaches a course at U-M called EDUC 333: Video Games & Learning, and is interested in using video games as models for learning environments.

Professor Huesmann has done extensive research on the subject of media violence and human aggression.

A member of the EECS department, Prof. Laird has done an extensive amount of research on computer games and AI, but is now focusing his research on other subjects related to AI.

Prof. Candace Moore teaches courses on television history and theory as well as feminist and queer media studies in the Departments of Screen Arts & Cultures and Women’s Studies.

Prof. Murphy teaches in the Departments of Screen Arts & Cultures and American Culture at UM, and teaches the course SAC 368: Video Games as Culture/Form.

Prof. Nakamura teaches in the American Culture Department as well as the Digital Studies Department at UM. Her fields of study are Asian American studies, digital media theory, digital game studies, feminist theory, film and television studies, race and gender in new media.

Prof. Quintana teaches in the School of Education, focusing on the design and assessment of learning technologies, and other work exploring the development of new technology-enhanced learning spaces within the School of Education. He teaches the course EDUC 333: Video Games and Learning.

Prof. Saleem is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies and a faculty associate at the Institute for Social Research. Dr. Saleem's research explores the role of media in interpersonal and intergroup conflicts.

Prof. Sandvig teaches in the Department of Communication Studies and the School of Information, and teaches a course entitled "Play and Technology," a course focused on digital games.

Prof. Thompson is an assistant professor in the School of Music who teaches a popular Video Game Music course almost every semester (PAT 305/MUSPERF 300).

Prof. Yarger is an international educator and Lecturer of Game Development in the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering, co-founder of the International Game Developers Association (Ann Arbor Chapter), and President of Arbor Interactive, a local game and software development firm . Austin has taught EECS 494, EECS 440, EECS 498.007, and EECS 298.

Dearborn offers a variety of game design courses through their College of Engineering and Computer Science.

This highly anticipated annual event showcases the final projects of computer science seniors who take EECS 494, Computer Game Design and Development.

Under the leadership of Dr. Bruce Maxim, the CIS Department has created the G.A.M.E. (Games and Multimedia Environments) Laboratory...

This group supports a dynamic assortment of innovative web-based programs harnessing the power of simulation gaming, activism and service learning, and social networking for educational purposes.

The School of Information's research and instruction in data science, human computer interaction, information economics and extended reality will play a role in addressing "critical social and behavioral questions surrounding games and game use, and the design of games."

The UM3D Lab has many game-related resources available for research use, including the Oculus Rift and other VR systems, as well as access to Unity and the Unreal Engine for aspiring game developers.

Playing video games is a great way to meet new people, have fun and relieve stress! The Casual Gaming Club works around YOUR schedule so as to provide easy means for students to play video games with friends and to meet people who have similar hobbies.

Informative Gamers is geared towards connecting students with the gaming industry where it concerns information science.

Michigan Games and Cards strives to connect students with an enthusiasm for board and card games.

We are a new club designed to network existing players of tabletop games (whether they be roleplaying games, board games, or card games) and helping new players get into the hobby as well!

This is a student-run organization for anyone interested in video game music, whether you have an insatiable love for the genre or are completely new to it.

Video Game Development at the University of Michigan! Design, build, program, draw, compose and play video games. Work in teams, receive tutorials, meet industry professionals, and release real products.

A special collection of the U-M Library that consists of a variety of games and systems from the 1970s to the present.

This store on Main St. sells comics and board games, and offers weekly board game nights to test new games and play with friends. The schedule can be found at the link.

Located in Ypsilanti, this store is great for Magic tournaments, comics, and has a great selection of board games.

Pinball Pete's sports a number of pinball and related games, and is one of the area's only remaining arcades.

Breakout! The Room Escape Game is a fun, exciting, and interactive new game where you are locked in a room with a group of friends, co-workers, or even strangers (who may soon become your best friends), and you must escape within 60 minutes using only your wits, and the items and clues available in the room.

AADL has a lively gaming community and semi-regular tournaments and events.

U-Con is an annual gaming convention founded in 1988. It attracts gamers not only from Southeast Michigan, but from across the United states and several other countries as well. U-Con offers high-quality events across the spectrum of gaming in a comfortable, functional space … and they work hard to keep the convention as affordable as possible.

This group aims to bring local game designers together to share ideas, experiences, and do what we do best: design new games!

We play a lot of D&D (several editions) and Pathfinder, often have Star Wars, Gamma World, 7th Sea, Call of Cthulhu, and other systems to check out. Our games are one-shots that can be played within 4-5 hours, and we're totally beginner-friendly.

The Ann Arbor branch of the International Game Developers Association brings Michigan's game-dev community together for monthly lectures, exhibitions, tutorials, free food, and industry talks at SPARK East in Ypsilanti.

Mobile App, Game, Virtual Reality, and Internet of Things developers working on their own projects...we are all about interactive apps & media on mobile and future platforms. We cover all mobile development platforms such as Unity 3D, Corona, XCode, Java, and more :)