Learner Reviews & Feedback for Introduction to Game Design by California Institute of the Arts

The course is more of "teach yourself" variety - you're given brief advice, you're given the task, you're given one week to do it. Good for trying different ideas and improving your ability to see the idea through instead of leaving it hanging in your head. You also see others' ideas at peer review, and one can learn a great lot by noticing opportunities they missed themselves.

For those taking the course, I advise to make a new game each time rather than alter one idea you got at the very beginning over and over. You're learning _design_, not _polish_.

This course is an excellent introduction into the world of game design. Fran Krause's teaching style is both engaging and fun. While the lectures are really short, and there's not really a whole lot of material, I found that I learned well through the doing the projects.

My only criticisms are that this course is a little too easy and a little too short. A good game increases it's difficulty as the levels progress. If you don't increase the difficulty, you take away from the reward. The same can be said about a good course.

It's a really well-designed course that is succint but imparts some useful knowledge. I am not a fan of the peer-reviewed assignments. The course seems slow - a few times I have logged in and there were no peer reviews to do. Also, your own game doesn't get reviewed very quickly either. You cannot complete the course unless someone reviews your work or you have reviewed a sufficient number of assignments so this is problematic and also a waste of time - constantly checking for someone to review.

I'd give it a 5 if I was only rating the material- it was very informative and easily digestible. Just what you need for a starting course.

The assignment and scoring part of the course is what brings the rating down a notch. Relying solely on feedback from people who are probably beginners in the field and who go by one sentence instruction on what to feedback on was not always constructive. More guidance needs to be added to what to look out for when scoring somebody's work.

Really fun and engaging lessons that are short and achievable—fun teachers. I think the peer reviews are helpful—there is something to improve upon in my game every week from peer reviews and new lessons. I left out one star because I think the content could improve a bit. So far everything is very basic, I think some snippets of more interesting or deeper concepts could make this course more valuable beyond some common sense ideas that are taught.

The module is overall great and gave me an intro on how game documents are developed, plus it made me start thinking like a game designer (I hope!)

My only complaint is that the homework is fairly restrictive (only one-page game per week, which means there's only so much you can do) but I do appreciate the fact that it simplifies things and if anything, it pushes you to be even more creative, beyond the typical "board game".

VERY INTERESTING COURSE, NOW i KNOW MORE MANY THINGS ABOUT THE COURSE SUBJECT AND I'M REALLY SATISFIED WITH THE PREMISES,, SO I WILL GO ON WITH NEXT COURSE IN THIS SPEC.. HOWEVER THE HOMEWORK RATE SYSTEMS IS BIASED BY STUDENTS WHO SOMETIMES DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT IS REQUESTED TO THEM OR SIMPLY BYPASS THE REVIEW ASSIGNEMENT GIVING CASUAL JUDGEMENTS , JUST TO SETTLE IT AND PUT IT APART SWIFTLY

Great course. Thank you so much. I especially loved the inclusion of the puppet and your comforting speaking style. To be honest, none of my other courses are nearly as fun. What I'd love to see is a sprinkling of conceptual theory in order to increase the value of the takeaway. But, overall, bravo(! seriously, bravo!), and I hope to take another one of your courses in the future.

This was my first class on Coursera. I really enjoyed the lessons and practice activities. The peer review process for grades is understandable but leaves the class vulnerable to evaluations by people who may or may not take the class as seriously as you would like. For someone who has played games for a long time, it was not a difficult class but still worth while.

The course is extremely basic. It doesnt worth the cost I paid for it. Moreover, the peer tasks evaluation of the tasks is so useless. Most of the time I just got one word "ok" or "wow" or "good" so I didn't get really helpful feedback on my work. To improve the workflow give the feature to evaluate the task reviewer back! Very disappointed.

A quite fun and interactive course designed for the beginners out there who have a great passion for games but don't know how these are made. The video content is not something that is not already available on youtube but I think the peer reviews and helping my classmates with their games made me learn so much more than those videos.

Very good course, though it is an introduction, I feel as though I already knew most of the subjects that were explained, however I did not know the impact that those could have on a game's value and how it helps the player engage in the game. The course was simple to follow and helped me know what to focus on when starting a game.

A good introduction to the basics of game design including mechanics, balance and character creation. It is VERY brief, so don't expect to cover too much ground. The course covers paper-based (board game) design, so it does NOT teach how to make video games, but it does impart the necessary foundation to do so in future.

Very good introduction. In a light and friendly manner, we're given basics of game, I particularly remember balance, that I now keep in mind and look for in many aspects. I appreciated that no computer knowledge is needed, it's really about thinking what makes a good game. Comments from the peer reviews are helpful.

The course was great! I really enjoyed the instructor and his puppet. Grading suffered a bit from the peer review system, so maybe not make 100% of the course grade depend on peer feedback. Overall, you get what you put into the course. I put a lot of work into designing my games, and learned a lot in the process.

Starting third week now, and I'm sold on learning by doing.

The classes are great, very easy to maintain focus because of how much variety Fran Krause brings to his lectures.

The best part, in my opinion, is going through the games of other people out there because of so many diverse ideas they bring to the table.

Frank is a little too plain while explaining things which makes it a little difficult to understand. A bit more expression and gestures while speaking would have made it easier. Otherwise, it is a very good course carrying amazing content and learning potential. Thanks a lot for this CalArts and Coursera!

The professor is funny and explains the concepts in a simple manner. The examples are great and I learned a lot. I had trouble with the assignment because it kept asking to add stuff each week, but still limiting to one page and my project was a little complex, so I had to resort to make everything tiny.

This course is a very good intro course. The instructor Fran is both informative and funny. Fran really offers some great advice on how to think in terms of ways to develop and test your game in different ways. I thought it was certainly worth it and I think you would think the same too!

Course is largely informative. However, the weekly assignments are peer graded. One other student plagiarized my work and tried to pass it as his own. I reported it, but Coursea has not responded. Not sure if they care. It seems like you can get away with anything.

The course material is funny and easy to follow, it breaks down important aspects of game design into easy chunks and assignments. As for reviews I feel like you get back what put in, if you make the effort for someone else you will get in return.

Even if it is a really simple course, I found it interesting and fun, even the homework were really funny to do. Much better than the second one.

I just say that pricing is too high for a course that actually put 1/2 basic concept for each video.

I think the classes were awesome and the assignments were very cool. However, the quality of feedbacks I received in the peer-reviewed assignments left much to be desired.

This is a good first course for someone who is stepping into game design.

Good course, I enjoyed the fact that there was a lot of hands-on work rather than just lectures, however, there could be more of the latter aswell. Quizes would be nice too.

The quality of the course is very high. Thank you for this course. :)

I enjoyed the video lessons. Liked the instructor and the puppet.

At first I had a challenging time thinking digital yet creating paper games. But it didn't take long to make the adjustment.

Feedback from other students was not very helpful.