I got this email from Steve Jackson Game's Daily Illuminator email. I just
signed up and thought I'd pass it along. If you sign up, let me know so we can
be added to the same group.
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Game Design Concepts ( http://gamedesignconcepts.wordpress.com/ ) , an online
course covering the process of making a game, from idea generation to
prototyping to playtesting. The instructor is Ian Schreiber, who wrote
Challenges for Game Designers (
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=stevejacksongame&path=tg/deta\
il/-/158450580X ) , and has been teaching game design at Ohio University for a
couple years.

The course has no registration fees except for the required text, but classes
start next Monday, June 29. Interested, but don't have the time to commit? Most
of the "lecture" will be occuring on the open blog, so anyone can follow along.

Since the office will be closed next week (
http://www.sjgames.com/ill/a/2009-06-23 ) , I think I'll add the site to my
Morning Coffee ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2677 ) . Some
topics in the syllabus (
http://gamedesignconcepts.wordpress.com/2009/04/21/syllabus-and-schedule/ )
look very interesting, especially "Critical vocabulary: what is a game?" and
"Blindtesting techniques." Anything that facilitates better communication
between designers sounds like a great idea to me, and you can never have too
many tricks for testing your game.