The teacher is wonderful, the course is very fun and wonderfully structured - I would highly recommend it! It is in itself like a multiplayer game that I enjoyed playing! :) The peer-reviewed assignments were really allowing me to learn by doing and to gradually learn from my and others' mistakes. All together, it was great!

My review is when i'm already in week 3 of this course. Really worthed to participate in this course, especially when you've finished your assignment and your classmate review your works! :)

Fran Krause is the best teacher. He really knows what are games, what we use them for and How make them fun!

In simply steps he tought me that game designing is what i want to do in my life

This course starts off a bit degrading with the puppets and such, which can make you feel like you're being talked down to like a child, but if you stick with it, the course actually pans out nicely and has some decent topics to cover. I genuinely enjoy the instructor and actually went out to get a couple copies of his Deep Dark Fears anthologies; Fran's attention to detail and imagination is a joy to experience.

I found that the peers performing the reviews of my assignments were a bit too focused on the hard and fast requirement of the assignments, rather than keeping their eyes on the figurative prize, that being the "fun" factor; rather than focusing on the level of enjoyability, which I view as paramount, I found time and time again that my peers were steadfastly grasping the submission's guidelines until they got proverbial white knuckles.

The fact that not only the game board, but also the pieces and rules all on one sheet of paper must all fit to one single-sided sheet of paper is a catch 22 here, as whenever I crammed it all into one sheet, I got negative feedback that (nomater how much brevity was exercised) it felt cramped, whereas when I provided supplemental materials to address said issue, I was docked points for going beyond one single-sided sheet of paper.

I find this incredibly frustrating and in direct spite of the fundamental point being conveyed throughout this course. I very much expected to see the assignment allow for more sheets of paper as we progressed, so I found this incredibly limiting, and served as a distraction from the points I was meant to explore.

I really liked that course! You should think about it as an introduction class, otherwise you will be really disappointed with its content. Speaking for my academic experience, I already know how to program a game, but I never had the chance to study the Game Design field. This course forced me to use a creatively thinking process to focus on some important aspects, like rules, multiplayer, and more.

Do not take this class if: you are looking for academic resources, books references, lot of theory to study.

Take this class if: you are looking for some challenges, with motivational contents, that can push you to express yourself with your own force and skills!

Videos are also very fun to follow! I think that Frank is an awesome teacher, with great communication skills.

This is an exceptionally really goods course. It's a nice, simple introduction to Board Game Design. It doesn't require you to use any software or animated drawing programs, you can achieve the course by using a Pen and A Piece of Paper. In this course, Fran uses simple language, and humour to aid the learning. I cannot draw at all, but found the content to learn, and the assignments easy to complete. I thoroughly recommend this course to anyone looking at Board Game Design, or those of you who are Concept Creators (Logos) etc, as it has helped me to develop my skills and knowledge. Robert Cooper (UK)

The course is AMAZING! it deals with a complex topic in a very simple way that allows you to build a game quickly while understanding the rules and basic strategies of game design. The only feedback i would like to give is regarding the faculty lack of interaction in the discussion forums. I feel they did not answer some of the questions sent to them in the specified forums and this lack of interactions diminishes the impact of the course. The course is still great, so i did not remove one star because of this, as i want to think the faculty will address the point above in future courses.

Although I do have a wee bit of experience in game design, I came into this course with an open mind, a clean-slate approach, and a willingness to learn and better myself. This course focuses on some of the fundamentals of game design, and does so in a very fun, very engaging way. You'll never feel like the assignments are "work" - instead, at the beginning of each Week, you'll be chomping at the bit to get to the assignment. All the assignments are really fun and you'll love getting peer-reviewed because your peers on this course are most likely going to be fellow game enthusiasts!

The course instructor was such a fantastic teacher! Being a beginner at game design, I found myself learning a ton despite the short videos (though these videos were so fun and entertaining to watch). I definitely recommend this course to anyone interested in getting started in game design! After completing this course, I feel much more confident about taking my game ideas to the next step. I now even have a rough draft of a board game that I created throughout the course, which I plan to eventually turn into a polished 2 or 3-player game!

It was an entertaining course which you can build things on paper. Which is nice if you are not friendly with computers. The only not-so-liked part was try to fit the assignments in a single side A4 page only. We had 4 assignments in each of the assignments except one, we are encouraged to build our assignments on previous assignments. So I needed more 2 papers in the last because I included graphics, a story, explanations on how to play, on multiplaying, etc. But it is fun, so it was worth trying it.

I was surprised at how difficult at first people made their simple games for the first few weeks. It was cool to see some really creative games that inspired and helped me with my ideas as well. The teaching videos were great and immersive that I laughed out loud at sometimes. Like "don't touch that there's a bomb" and then just touching the bomb and the puppet exploding. (2 ways to explain something in a game)

I loved the course and look forward to the second course! Thank you CALARTS!!!!

This was my first course on COURSERA and first course about game design. It has really opened my mind to many characteristics of game design. It a super helpful course if your starting in game design(which I am!). You'll have the opportunity to review others and be reviewed, which is very important! The feedback I got really helped me to go forward, and reviewing others gave me the opportunity to see many different designs and ways to build game mechanics. It's very great.

I really enjoyed the course. The instructor knows what he is talking about, and he leaves you room to be creative. Game design is all about being creative, it is like any art. I believe the instructor can not physically tell someone how to be creative, it is something that is within us all. I am grateful to have had the oppotunity to go through with this course and create some table top games as a basis for game design. Excited for the future of this course.

I found the course to be very well structured and interesting; it was very exciting to learn all the basics of game design. The teacher was very engaging and the homework, while basic enough for beginners, was challenging enough to keep things interesting. My only suggestion is, if possible, also have a teacher grading our projects and not just peers. As much as valuable and important peer feedback is, I think it doesn't replace an expert's evaluation.

Very good material, visually and content wise. It could have had more content to make it denser, but I guess it has enough to be an introduction course. What I enjoyed the most were the assignments. Having to think how to implement what the video lectures explained was a good challenge. But above all, receiving peer reviews to improve on the ideas, and also trying out the games of other peers is the best part of the learning experience, in my opinion.

Content is great, the exercises are thought provoking, and I actually made a pretty decent game at the end. The only shame is that enrollment was very, very low when I took it. I hope that the next time the course is offered Coursera/CalArts advertises it more, share it more on social media, and really garner interest in it. It's a good course and many people would be interested in it if they knew it existed.

It was a well presented course that was easy to follow but offered a lot of information. It helped me put my gaming activities and plans to get into the industry into context. I thoroughly enjoyed the assignments and making a paper based game for my peers to review. I highly recommend taking this course. The use of the puppet was an inspired and well chosen addition.

I enjoyed the course, I learned a lot about rule development, difficulty evaluation, along with other elements in game design. The peer feedback was important. As someone who designs games, input from your potential customer base is crucial. They definitely helped me design a better game. I could see the improvement from the first week to the last week. Thank you.

Well structured lessons and basics concepts to learn. The course is absolutely accessible for everyone and all the concepts and words are perfectly explained with a lot of examples. Also mention that the spoken English is quite easy to understand, thanks to a good pronunciation and excellent pacing. In any case, you can enable the subs if you need them.

Having done this course has given me a better understanding of why games work and how they relate to the different platforms they are designed for. The coursework is limited to a paper based game, which has different dynamics from a video game, but it gave me the practice of evaluating my own work with a lot more clarity than I had before.

This course helped me a lot understanding the basics of Game Design! Definately good if you are interested in building a basic Game Design knowledge. I'm going for the specialization so I'm excited to keep learning more as I am currently working at a Game company but not in the Game teams... I would love to join them someday :D

The course is very funny and objective in the understanding of the Game Design fundamentals and concepts. Apart of that, the week lessons help the peers to keep track of the course and keep focused. The very basic way to design a simple game will turn you into a deep adventure and pleasant journey to the goal over the time.

The course is amazing. No, wait, probably I would say THE TEACHER is AMAZING! I loved the way he explains the material, I love the music and graphical part, the jokes. I am very grateful for the CALARTS to share their knowledge with the rest of the world and can't wait to start the next course from the specialization!

This introduction to Game Design was exceptional! The teacher is great and manages to keep the course light and still deliver the necessary knowledge. In this course you learn the basics about games, what they are, what rules are, what characters are etc. For me it was just the perfect start.

This course was a great start on the road to game design. The material was delivered in a fun and easy to understand manner. In the end, I was extremely excited and proud of the simple game I made. I would highly recommend this course as a starter for anyone looking to get into game design!