GEOG 221
Speculative World-Building: Games and Simulation
This class will introduce the theory, background, and practice of (analog) gaming, and simulation, or, more generally speculative world-building. These activities are increasingly important in contemporary culture, and also in science, policy, business, planning, and government, in situations where understanding how the world works, how the world might work, or how things might work differently are important. In addition to approaching games as objects of study, students will design new games on topics of their choice, alone or in groups, as a practical component of this class.
Topics
- This class is a revised version of a class called ‘Spatial simulation modeling’ (Geography 228), but replaces computer simulation with board games as a vehicle for exploring how to abstractly represent processes and relations in the world. The aim is to develop an understanding of practices of ‘world-building’, using board games as an accessible point of entry to these practices. To do computer simulation requires learning how to program (‘to code’ as people insist of calling it today), which is a fine ambition but is distinct from the much more fundamental practices of abstraction, quantification, systems analysis, and so forth that underpin building simulation models. Working with board games instead of computational models will helps us get to the heart of those practices a lot more easily without the distraction of learning to program.
- It is important to note that this is not a game design class; it is not a game theory class; and it is not a cultural studies of games class, although students may learn a little (or even a lot) about all these things, particularly the first. We will look at a lot of games during the semester, as a way to understand games as systems of interacting mechanics, preparatory to student projects which will develop either entirely new games or (probably more likely) develop variants of existing games to align the game’s model of the world more closely with aspects they wish to explore.
Official catalogue course objectives and student learning outcomes
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026-2027