JAN 106 - Designing the Quest Board Game: Heroes, Heroines, and Healers

Type:  In-Person

Course Meeting Days & Times: MTThF, 9:15 AM-11:45:00 AM

Instructor(s): Gearhart-Utchen, Jenyth

Email: jjg13@stmarys-ca.edu

Fee: $50

Course Description:  In this 100% in-person course, we will read quest narratives and create board games based on plot and character archetypes from hero’s and heroine’s journeys. Part reading, part writing, and part manufacturing, this interdisciplinary course encourages students to synthesize patterns of thinking and play as they contend with assumptions surrounding “winning.” If you are curious how one may translate the Hero’s Journey into a game of skill or chance or thrones, this course is for you. If you wonder how the Heroine resolves feminine seduction and betrayal to overcome obstacles, you should study with us. If you’re questioning how play might help a protagonist heal their painful circumstances and become whole, try creating a board game using healing tokens and tiles to aid the protagonist across the finish line.

We will read excerpts from Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces, Maureen Murdock’s The Heroine’s Journey, and use the Avatar series as our mentor movies. Book groups will choose from fantasy (A Wrinkle in Time), folklore (Where the Mountain Meets the Moon), science fiction (Ender’s Game), mythology (The Hidden Oracle: The Trials of Apollo#1), or realism (A Man Called Ove). We will play three categories of board games in class, then design our own in collaborative small groups (selected according to areas of interest).

In these four weeks, we will practice the five “Ps” of project management: proposal, plan, people, process, and product. Imagine the last day of the course: groups of three or four students at five tables playing and evaluating each others’ original and exciting board games.

 

Prerequisites & Notes
None

Credits: 3