MAC 270 Worldbuilding Design

This course explores emerging methods of narrative design in relationship to worldbuilding. Worldbuilding refers to designing a complex integrated system with many moving parts such as characters, settings, myths, rules, artifacts – often a whole system of a society and culture. These design methods are used throughout media forms ranging from narrative writing, filmmaking, theater, architecture, mobile apps, video games, and virtual reality, to the integrated use of multiple forms using transmedia storytelling. Students will create short projects that investigate relationships between the design of a world and the storytelling possibilities that emerge from and are embedded within it, using both analog and digital methods. Students will experiment with methods and concepts such as non-linear storytelling, interactivity, experience design, transmedia, the poetics of space, and other relevant topics. Readings and short screenings will contextualize hands-on-work within larger historical and cultural contexts.