Spring 2027

Game Design I

Game Design I explores fundamentals of game design and developing skills in designing interactive systems for educational, museum, and technology-mediated settings.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Jennifer SciannaKrista-Lee Malone

Summary

1 / 3

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.78 GPA, 89.6% A/AB (n=77 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.75 GPA, 86.0% A/AB (n=57 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.86 GPA, 97.4% A/AB (n=38 letter grades).

What you’ll be able to do

  • Explore game design skills and methods such as iterative design, playtesting, collaboration, critical analysis, and communication.

  • Foster an understanding of digital and non-digital games and how gameplay becomes meaningful for players.

  • Explore fundamental concepts relating to games and design, such as rules and play, emergent complexity, long and short-term goals, etc. This includes understanding games as formal systems, experienced human systems, and cultural systems.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
CURRIC 357 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Spring 2027

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=19 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.89 GPA, 97.3% A/AB (n=37 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.95 GPA, 94.7% A/AB (n=19 letter grades).

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.81 GPA, 91.9% A/AB (n=37 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.92 GPA, 94.7% A/AB (n=19 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.92 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=18 letter grades).

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

JENNIFER SCIANNA is recorded teaching in Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

KRISTA-LEE MALONE is recorded teaching in Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
SEM 001Classroom Instruction0 / 200
SEM 002Classroom Instruction0 / 200
SEM 003Classroom Instruction0 / 200

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
Download part 1

Student experience

the class

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.78 GPA, 89.6% A/AB (n=77 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.75 GPA, 86.0% A/AB (n=57 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.86 GPA, 97.4% A/AB (n=38 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Topics

  • Fundamentals of game design
  • Educational game design and applications in museums, theme parks, and classrooms
  • Rules, play, emergent complexity, and games as formal, human, and cultural systems

Skills

  • Game design, iterative design, playtesting, collaboration, critical analysis, and communication.
  • Understanding digital and non-digital games and player meaning.
  • Fundamental game concepts including rules, play, emergent complexity, and goal structures.

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
CURRIC 357 · Spring 2027

Game Design I

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:272:024951",
    "course_id": "CURRIC 357",
    "course_uid": "course_a49e6f9391c75f24b60cc040",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "024951",
    "source_subject_id": "272",
    "title": "Game Design I",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Not Applicable"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews

No records available.

Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "440d58a78591752d114f25b976ba625f72806cec1c4df874bdce818c26838abd",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}