99082 - Digital Storytelling (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

The course aims at providing the necessary skills to design, plan and produce contents for digital media. At the end of the course students know: - the fundamentals of digital storytelling; - the narrative structures and the different forms of storytelling in the digital media ecosystem; - some practical tools to create narrative based projects.

Course contents

The lab aims to give a set of practical tools to design a digital narrative game. During this five week course many different types of design methods will be described and tested through several case histories and some personal experiences from participants.

• Introduction to playfulness and interactive sotrytelling in contemporary media: theoretical fundamentals and in-depth analysis on unconventional products.
• Design thinking, Game design, and Narrative design: tools, methods, case studies.
• Teamwork: concepts ideation, iterative cycles of design, paper or digital mock-up prototyping, pitching.

Readings/Bibliography

Game culture & Game studies

- Ian Bogost, Play Anything: The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, and the Secret of Games, Basic Books 2016.

- Marco B. Carbone & Riccardo Fassone (eds.), Il videogioco in Italia, Mimesis 2020.

- Valerie Frissen, Sybille Lammes, Michiel de Lange, Jos de Mul, Joost Raessens (eds.), Playful Identities. The Ludification of Digital Media Cultures, Amsterdam University Press 2015. (https://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=524070)

- Alexander R. Galloway, Gaming. Saggi sulla cultura algoritmica, Sossella 2022.

- Hartmut Koenitz, Gabriele Ferri, Mads Haahr, Diğdem Sezen e Tonguç İbrahim Sezen (eds.), Interactive Digital Narrative. History, Theory and Practice, Routledge 2015.

- Mauro Salvador, In gioco e fuori gioco: il ludico nella cultura e nei media contemporanei, Mimesis 2015.

Design & Game design

- Anna Anthropy, Naomi Clark, A Game Design Vocabulary, Addison-Wesley, Boston 2014.

- Maresa Bertolo, Ilaria Mariani (eds.), Game Design. Gioco e giocare tra teoria e progetto, Pearson 2014.

- Donald Norman, La caffettiera del masochista, Giunti, Firenze 2014 / The Design of Everyday Things, Basic Books, New York 2013.

- Jesse Schell, The art of game design: a book of lenses, M. Kaufman, Burlington MA 2008.

- Christopher W. Totten, An Architectural Approach to Level Design, CRC Press 2018.

Game, places & media

- Martijn de Waal, Michiel de Lange, Matthijs Bouw. The Hackable City Cahier #1 #2 #3. The Hackable City: a Model for Collaborative Citymaking. Amsterdam: The Hackable City, 2018. (http://themobilecity.nl/2018/03/23/the-hackable-city-cahiers/)

- Nicola Dusi, Dal cinema ai media digitali, Mimesis 2014.

- Riccardo Fassone, Every Game is an Island Endings and Extremities in Video Games, Bloomsbury 2017.

- Riccardo Fassone, Cinema e videogiochi, Carocci 2017.

- Anton Nijholt (ed.), Playable Cities : The City as a Digital Playground, Springer 2017.

Teaching methods

The course will involves moments of theoretical study, moments of collective work and moments of group work with the aim of prototyping and pitching an original project.

***IMPORTANT***

The course is proposed as a workshop. Therefore a practical and proactive participation is strongly suggested. Attendance to lectures is not mandatory but it is necessary to participate in a working group:

- Those who intend to consistently participate in presence, will join a working group. Those who participate occasionally or do not attend classes, will be considered not-attending students.

- The working groups are formed within the first two lessons of the course. Those who intend to start attending after the first week and want to participate in a work group must notify the teacher in time and their request will be evaluated. This is mandatory, there will be no exceptions.

- Each working group will develop a project DURING the course, not at its conclusion. Each week each working group will present its progress, following an agreed timeline.

***IMPORTANT***

Assessment methods

Those who participate in a working group are considered ATTENDING students and will develop a project during the course.

The working group will be evaluated on the basis of:

- final presentation and project quality;

- quality of work on the project during the course.

The evaluation is unique for the entire group and will be communicated during the exam session. More information will be given during the course.

Students who do not participate in a work group are considered NON-ATTENDING and will be evaluated with an oral interview in presence on the two mandatory texts. The exam will verify:

- the knowledge of the different approaches to design and prototyping;
- the ability to communicate clearly;

- the autonomy of judgment on digital products and familiarity with the theoretical tools addressed.

Teaching tools

Google Drive, Twine, Mirò and, when necessary, other free digital tools.

Office hours

See the website of Mauro Salvador