Resources to teach strategy game design
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Introduction to games through Play!

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To be a game designer, you have to be a gamer first. So, for students' first days with me, they played games. Each day they played a short game that could be learned and played in a single class period. Each game was chosen because of its mechanics and so collectively, students would acquire familiarity with a good handful of mechanics, right at the start. Each group of kids stayed together, so over the course of several days, they each learned all of the games.

his was a good idea, especially as an intro to the race games that they will make in the Quick Game Design Workshop, and the mechanics learned complement the games kids play when I put them into groups.

To help them keep track of their ideas for their race game, I made this ​My First Game Ideas Log.

Table of my Introduction Games

Games we play in the beginning to learn about games

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PPG: Villains at Large

Mechanics: ​
​Auction/Bidding, Hand Management
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cthulhu in the House

Mechanics: 
​Modular Board, Point to Point Movement, Secret Unit Deployment
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Deep sea adventure

Mechanics: 
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Pick-up and Deliver, Press Your Luck, Roll and Move

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 Hey That's My Fish!

Mechanics:
Area Enclosure, Grid Movement, Modular Board
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Get Bit!

Mechanics:
Hand Management, Player Elimination, Simultaneous Action Selection
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Tsuro

Mechanics:
Hand Management, Player Elimination, Route/Network Building, Tile Placement

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Ticket to Ride: New York

Mechanics:
Card Drafting, Hand Management, Route/Network Building, Set Collection
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Sushi Go!

Mechanics:
Card Drafting, Hand Management, Set Collection, Simultaneous Action Selection
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Walk the Plank

Mechanics:
Simultaneous Action Selection, Take That

Other Games that I've used successfully 

Age of War (Dice Rolling, Press Your Luck, Set Collection)
Qwinto (Dice Rolling, Paper-and-Pencil, Pattern Building)
Lanterns (Hand Management, Pattern Building, Set Collection, Tile Placement)

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