Center for Learning through Games and Simulations
Five Hundred Year Old Vampire available for preorder
Five Hundred Year Old Vampire is a multi-player keepsake role-playing game designed by Jason Cox with art by Jabari Weathers that adapts the award-winning Thousand Year Old Vampire (TYOV) by Tim Hutchings into a new collaborative play experience suitable for both fans of TYOV and students in an educational setting.
As in TYOV, play in Five Hundred Year Old Vampire progresses semi-randomly through prompts answered with writings from the vampire’s perspective, but Five Hundred Year Old Vampire also includes player-created artifacts and rules for multi-player vampire Cohorts.
Five Hundred Year Old Vampire will see the players’ Vampires gradually lose their humanity and struggle to adapt to a changing world. The Vampires will do things the players would not, both monstrous and awe-inspiring, and players will record these deeds through journaling and artmaking.
- Visit the Backerkit Campaign Page for more information, art previews, and updates on production.
- Visit the CMich Press Webstore to preorder your copy now!
Certificate in Applied Game Design
Central Michigan University's Center for Learning through Games and Simulations (CLGS) and Gen Con are partnering to bring you courses in applied tabletop game design – game design for your workspace and your playspace. Industry experts team with academic experts to create online synchronous courses where most of the time is spent engaged in active learning, interaction, and collaboration with your instructors and classmates. Courses use the Gather.town platform for meeting and playing. This is a non-credit bearing course and certificate.
Certificate in Applied Game Design
Game Design Thinking Minor
The Game Design Thinking Minor offers students an interdisciplinary approach to the study of games and game design. Drawing upon several disciplinary approaches from across the university, it is structured to allow students to explore and apply the principles of good game design to a broad range of potential career options. Contact the Center for Learning through Games and Simulations for more information or to declare the minor.
Process for course inclusion
The Game Design Thinking Minor offers students an interdisciplinary approach to the study of games and game design. Drawing upon several disciplinary approaches from across the university, it is structured to allow students to explore and apply the principles of good game design to a broad range of potential career options.
CMU Faculty who wish to have a course added to the GDT minor program should note the following requirements:
- Requests should include contact details and department of the requesting faculty, a short statement making the request, and a teaching syllabus for the course in question.
- Requests to include a course in Required Courses I, II, or IV of the GDT minor program must also include a written rationale for inclusion.
- For inclusion in Required Courses III of the GDT minor program, the teaching syllabus of a course must have at least 40% of its total assessment related to games and/or game-based learning.
Formal requests may be submitted at any time throughout the academic year to clgs@cmich.edu or delivered to the Center for Learning through Games and Simulations, Anspach 001. Requests will be reviewed by the Game Design Thinking Interdisciplinary Program Council (GDTIPC) at its next available scheduled meeting.
The following is a breakdown of each section of the GDT minor program, offered to help faculty applicants in deciding which part of the minor to apply for.
- Required Courses I: This category is for the core courses of the minor, which introduce students to various philosophies of and approaches to game design, as well as the ways people learn through games.
- Required Courses II: This category offers students experience with skills associated with analog and video game design.
- Required Courses III: The courses in this category broadly expose students to the process of game critique and game-based learning (colloquially referred to as “games in the wild”).
- Required Capstone: The capstone courses offer students the opportunity to apply their previous learning to the process of building, designing, and testing a game, either individually or as part of a team.