Frag As A Teaching Device
We think Frag is a pretty great game, with a straightforward design full of depth and plenty of room for exploration. Nick LaLone, who teaches a course on Game Design and Development (GDD1) at Rochester Institute of Technology, sees it as a great tool to equip the next generation of video game designers.
Having worked for Blizzard Entertainment for a number of years, I was excited to have the chance to chat with Nick in more detail about exactly how Frag is being used in his course. Looking to expand his students' prototyping and design approach beyond the digital world, Frag presented an opportunity to let the students build from a solid foundation while exploring new ideas.
Nick graciously took the time to write up an excellent blog post that goes into more detail about the course and conclusions, and also includes fifteen different expansions conceptualized by the students. These expansion ideas include balance fixes, turret mechanics, cooperative gameplay, boss fights, and quite a bit more.
I want to again thank Nick and all the students from the GDD1 course at the Rochester Institute of Technology for sharing this with us and letting us be a part of the process! We will be sending over some more copies of Frag for Nick to use in his future assignments.