USC School of CTIN 464 Game Studies Seminar: Critical Approaches to Escape Rooms Cinematic Arts Units: 2.0 Spring 2016—Tuesdays, 14:00-16:50 Interactive Media & Games Division Location: SCA 110 Instructor: Kiki Benzon Office: SCI 101C Office Hours: by appointment Contact Info:
[email protected] Student Assistant: TBA Course Description This course focuses on escape rooms, an increasingly popular genre of immersive, environmental play that situates players in a mysterious “locked” room; players “escape” by solving a system of puzzles in order to unravel a cryptic narrative that unlocks the mystery of the room. As this is a Games Studies Seminar, we will be considering the escape room phenomenon within historical, cultural, and economic contexts. We will also address the ways in which various game forms and genres—tabletop games, puzzle video games, role-playing games, mechanical puzzles, and others—have contributed to and still influence the formal, aesthetic, and structural elements of the contemporary escape room. Over the course of the term, students will experience and analyze a number of escape rooms in Los Angeles, and speak with practitioners in the field about tangible storytelling, experience design, and running an escape room in a competitive entertainment environment. Students will work in teams to develop an escape room proposal, which they will deliver in an industry pitch at the end of the term. Learning Objectives • devise a genealogy of escape rooms, a game form derived from myriad types of play • explore the cultural