I probably have to rate this course 5 stars just for the supplementary reading materials provided. Theres a lot of great information provided here. This course helps formalize a process that highly talented people just do intuitively. With the information within, youre able to better understand different aspects of your creative process. At times, the professors delivery can be a little distracting (he has quite a few awkward pauses in the middle of thoughts, and uses the phrase, right? a little too unconsciously). I also found some of the lecture material difficult to connect in a practical sense. Some aspects of the design, play, experience model could use better examples in lecture to make the points more concrete. It is a deep model, and they do in fact point you to a whitepaper published on it so there is that, but just for the sake of the lessons; the examples need better explanation. The quizzes were easy, but challenging in the wrong way. Often, questions are posed that werent ever directly answered in lecture or the materials, and sometimes they are worded in ways that make it difficult to pinpoint what they are looking for. It would be nice to see student responses to the free-response questions make a comeback in future lessons or at least know that they could possibly carry into the material used to teach the next incoming class. The assignments follow a logical progression, and again are supplemented with great materials. The review system is a little wonky. Ive posted in the boards about this. They need to make the criteria more clear. The community activity is pretty low. Im not sure how this can be addressed, but overall this is a great course and perfect second stop on the journey towards the Game Design and Development specialization.
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