Introduction

Welcome to the blog!

My name is Chris Totten and I am a graduate student at The Catholic University of America's School of Architecture and Planning with a concentration in Digital Media. That's my usual intro to business letters and anything that gets sent out with a resume anyway...

I am also an amateur game designer and game design theorist. In our free time, a few friends of mine and I design and create our own independent video games under the name "Ragnarok Games." At times I have even been sort of a "freelance educator", in that I love to teach and take whatever opportunities (swim instructor, teaching assistant, lecturer on how to use Photoshop, etc.) I can get.

As a part of the curriculum for CUA's Architecture Graduate program, I have to write a thesis paper and design an appropriate building based on the ideas from that paper. Having been an architecture student and through teaching them as a TA (teaching assistant) I have noticed that a lot of students are bored with the "old school" ways that architecture is taught. They want to stop dropping white boxes from the sky and make something that is exciting for the person who is actually inside the building.

Enter Game Design

Bringing some of my own interests into the project, (If I'm spending two years on this thing I'd better make it something fun!) I've decided to do my thesis on game design. Tentatively called Game Design and Architecture, it will discuss many of the game design principles that I have found through my own reading, research, and experience with games and find ways that they can be used to inform the field of architecture.

It will look at the psychological and sociological reasons that humans find pleasure and other emotions in built space and discuss how these instincts can be drawn upon to create architecture that invites exploration, much like video games do. It will also look at a game's ability to tell a story or give other types of information to a player in real time and discover how architecture can do the same. Finally, it will look at how modern technology has been and can work together with the built environment to inform its occupants on what's happening in the real and virtual worlds around them.

So why is all this being posted on Blogger?

As I said before, I enjoy teaching, so when I looked at the problem I wanted to solve for this thesis I realized that researching, learning, and writing about these things myself was all well and good, but stands up little to someone who would wonder if it could be taught successfully to a class of students.

So I got a class >:-D

While I am developing the course, I will post my thoughts on the material in this blog, which will hopefully become a useful resource in its own right. I would invite other game designers or architects to visit to read and comment (or offer me a job? please? hey, a guy's gotta try...) whenever they wish. I'd also like students, not only my own, to come by and check this all out. In the interest of the class being an experiment (the students have a design project at the beginning of the course solely reliant on their architectural knowledge...so no game design info) I won't be posting any actual theories until the Fall, but will use the Summer to comment on the experience and progress of making the course, any game designs I come up with, or even any randomly wacky thoughts I have about happenings in the game industry.

So please, enjoy, comment, and have a good one!