Growing up in Seoul, South Korea, Somi Hwang never considered herself a “gamer.”
In fact, the graduate student with the School of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction rarely played games — video, board, or otherwise.
“It just wasn’t something I did,” she says.
But after taking Game Design I and II classes led by Matthew Berland, Hwang not only learned to understand the value of game play as a potential education tool, but she is preparing to publish a new board game called, “Super Badgers,” which introduces players to UW–Madison and its unique campus life.
Similar to a Monopoly board, the game showcases more than a dozen well-known Madison and campus hot spots, including Camp Randall Stadium, Bascom Hall, and the Educational Sciences building.
The game is played with four players, who are undergraduate students, trying to complete tasks around town — such as returning a book to the Memorial Library. Players are attempting to bolster their grade-point average and complete their ultimate goal of freeing Bucky Badger, who is frozen via a mysterious spell in the State Capitol after a long winter.
The winner becomes a “Super Badger.”
Hwang, who studied spatial design as an undergraduate at Kookmin University, handled most of the graphic and story design for “Super Badgers.” The design of the game’s mechanics was led by Benjamin Hurley, a senior computer science major who is pursuing a game design certificate. And recent computer science graduate Peter Ambutas pulled together the story details during the Game Design II course last spring when all three students first met.
The game design certificate, launched in October of 2018 and led by Berland, is a 19-credit program jointly offered by the departments of Curriculum and Instruction, Art, and Computer Sciences. It is designed to empower students with the skills, understanding, and background to create and produce games independently, and to gain critical perspectives on games and game design.
Berland says the new certificate program is already popular with students from across campus, with the Game Design I, Game Design II, and Videogames and Learning courses filling to capacity during the fall, spring, and summer semesters.
“It’s exciting to see students come together from around the university with different backgrounds and majors and ideas to make games,” says Berland, an associate professor of digital media in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and an expert in the learning sciences.
Berland adds that students who complete the game design certificate will have a portfolio of games they have built to showcase to potential employers — or to even sell.
To launch “Super Badgers,” Hwang set up a company, Edesign Studio, through which she is working on getting the game into the University Book Store. Separate from the “Super Badgers” project, she is also working as a graphic designer with a local start-up, Innov8 Language, Inc., which is making virtual reality games designed to promote language learning.
“As a master’s student in curriculum and instruction, it’s exciting to learn how to use games that interest people and can help them learn,” says Hwang.