Topics in Game Design
Exploration of theories, issues, and histories within specialized game design areas like genres, social impact, or novel technologies.
Summary
Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=16 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.93 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=14 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.89 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=14 letter grades).
What you’ll be able to do
Communicate with large teams about complex and specialized tasks using common project management techniques.
Identify the affordances and constraints of different game design contexts including specific genres, new technologies, and specialized subfields.
Design, describe, and/or implement a ludic exemplar based on a narrow set of design principles.
Articulate possible directions for future experiments within game design.
Put new trends and developments in games into conversation with critical theories of technology, power, and education.
Source: UW Guide
Grade history
↗All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors
Prerequisites
Course mapNone
- None
This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.
Prerequisite text tree
- None
Professors
Spring 2027No instructors recorded for this selection.
Historical instructors & teaching patterns
Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.
Calendar & sections
Spring 2027Schedule loads here as you scroll.
| Section | Mode | Enrolled / capacity | Waitlist |
|---|
Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.
Meeting source records
Student experience
the class
Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=16 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.93 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=14 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.89 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=14 letter grades).
difficulty & workload
No workload feedback recorded.
Topics
- Theories, issues, and histories within a specialized area of game design
- Developing games for a particular genre, for social impact, or using novel technologies
- Critical theories of technology, power, and education
Skills
- Communicate with large teams about complex and specialized tasks using common project management techniques.
- Identify the affordances and constraints of different game design contexts including specific genres, new technologies, and specialized subfields.
- Design, describe, and/or implement a ludic exemplar based on a narrow set of design principles.
- Articulate possible directions for future experiments within game design.
- Put new trends and developments in games into conversation with critical theories of technology, power, and education.
Grades
Latest available · Fall 2025— not enough history to project Spring 2027.
Grade distribution · % of letter grades
Grades over time
Through Fall 2025
More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data
Not enough comparable courses for Spring 2027 in UW–Madison.
Sources & history
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.
Selected offering source records
No offering records for the selected term.
Raw records
[]
Student reviews
Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.
Read original reviews
No records available.
Grade history
Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.
Explore recorded gradesRecorded 2026-10-14
Model outputs & technical records
LLM outputs across runs
Full model traces
Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.
Model & dataset provenance
{
"model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
"model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
"task_version": "17",
"output_id": "1a0c814c890b2b1f1b4527fc84d8c9fd3740d843e3375ef9c67ca91955e4afa1",
"requirements_status": "valid",
"dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
"observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}