July 22, 2011

From July 11 to July 15, professors Rudy McDaniel (School of Visual Arts and Design) and José Maunez-Cuadra (School of Visual Arts and Design and Latin American Studies) traveled to Puntarenas, Costa Rica to deliver a hands-on workshop to nine faculty at the University of Costa Rica, Pacific Campus. The workshop covered topics relating to game design and game production.

Participating faculty learned concepts relating to iterative design, playtesting, audience analysis, and prototyping. Faculty in the Business Informatics Department at the UCR Pacific Campus are proposing a new academic program that will include game design, web design, and animation, so faculty attended the workshop to learn more about the subject. At the end of the workshop, faculty presented their original games designed using the Scratch prototyping software, a tool designed by the MIT Lifelong Kindergarten research group.

The workshop was sponsored by the Latin American Studies Program, the School of Visual Arts and Design, and the University of Costa Rica, Pacific Campus.