IDeATe Celebrates Gaming and Community in First FrIDeATe

One Friday each month, IDeATe educators, staff, and students come together in the basement of Hunt Library to share information, mingle, and enjoy a delicious meal. FrIDeATe gives the IDeATe community a chance to chat with faculty and staff, learn something new about the program, and connect with people and resources across CMU. On Sept. 11, IDeATe kicked off the fall semester with a FrIDeATe session built around games and gaming opportunities available across campus.

Gaming has a strong presence in IDeATe — Game Design is one of the program’s 10 minors, and elements of gaming, including various technologies, audience interaction, and iterative design, are explored in other classes and minors as well. IDeATe instructor Tyler Crumrine, who teaches in the Game Design minor and leads his own gaming company called Possible World Games, attended to share his background and experience working with students.

Following a brief introduction, Crumrine led a game session from “Parsely,” a collection of games inspired by the text-adventures of the 1980s. He presented a scenario — you step out of a subway car and find a flaming goat blocking your path — and asked players to shout out simple commands to solve the puzzle.

“The same way IDeATe brings together design, arts, and technology for integrative learning, roleplaying games bring players' unique skills and perspectives together in collaborative problem solving,” he said. Crumrine teaches "IDeATe: Little Games/Big Stories: Indie TTRPG Studio," a course that introduces IDeATe students to indie RPGs and supports them in designing their own mini tabletop games. “Games are also one of our best cross-generational pastimes, with the joy of creating, sharing, or mastering even simple mechanics bringing together people of all ages and backgrounds. I'm constantly grateful to IDeATe for inviting me to be a part of their community, and always happy to help extend that invitation to others when I can.”

This year, the University Libraries launched a new Table-Top Role Playing Game Collection intended to support both academic study and recreational play. Arts and Humanities Librarian Ashley Werlinich and Business and Entrepreneurship Librarian Jen McKee attended FrIDeATe to promote the new collection, along with Undergraduate Experience and Student Success Librarian Frankie Checchio.

"Developing this collection has really been such a great example of how communities can come together to make great things happen. We've been so lucky to work alongside so many librarians, game makers, and publishers to help this collection take shape,” Werlinich said. “I'm hoping that we can work alongside our IDeATe students and faculty to keep that momentum going and really make a collection that's of, by, and for our community."

Housed on the second floor of Hunt Library, the collection features RPG books in a variety of genres, including fantasy and adventure, horror, science fiction, and even cozy games that are perfect for a rainy day. Some are designed for multiple players, while others are solo journaling games. The collection also includes gaming kits with dice, cards, and dry erase markers, which can be checked out for two weeks along with games to ensure players have everything they need for their sessions.

"This collection is intended to represent a vast variety of what's out there in the gaming world,” Werlinich explained. “Not only have we included the ‘classics’ like Dungeons & Dragons (and some equally popular new games that have generated a lot of buzz in the gaming world) but we've also used the collection to uplift indie creators who often don't get as much of the spotlight, and weird and nontraditional games you might not know about otherwise."

There are over 80 books available in the collection now, and dozens more that are in the process of being catalogued and added to the shelves.

At September’s FrIDeATe gathering, Werlinich set out a few examples from the collection for attendees to peruse, and handed out 20-sided dice with a unique Libraries Scotty dog design. McKee raffled off a 3D-printed dice tower shaped like a castle, which was won by first-year Information Systems student Isabella Chen. She also invited the community to “Hands-On: Mini Painting with the RPG Collection,” a Libraries event scheduled for Nov. 5.

“As our students engage in topics like game design or creative writing, our RPG materials — whether major titles or indie self-publications — can serve as reference material and inspiration through the experiential learning stages of game development or scenario writing,” McKee said. “And, it's also a wonderful opportunity for students to explore and play some new games without having to spend any of their own money!”

CMU’s Board Game Club was also represented at the event. Postdoctoral Fellow in Robotics and club officer David Neiman brought a stack of board games, along with flyers advertising the club’s regular meetings on Saturdays at 1 p.m. in the Cohon University Center. Attendees were invited to learn the rules to a new game or pick up an old favorite and settle in for some conversation and healthy competition with friends and new acquaintances.

Ultimately, the gathering was a chance for people who approach games from different directions — as designers, researchers, educators and players — to find each other, share resources and, of course, play a few games together. For Academic Coordinator Ryan McKelvey, who helps organize FrIDeATes, creating opportunities for those kinds of connections is central to the monthly gathering.

"An exchange of ideas and practices are core to the IDeATe academic experience. It's important to provide the opportunity and space for organic connection, encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration and individual exploration beyond the classroom," McKelvey said. "Outside of the labs or studios, we tend to speak about our research and practice more freely. This is a vital skill to develop throughout life and a hallmark of the IDeATe pedagogy: Am I able to articulate my interests and passions to my peers across campus, instructors in other departments, future employers, my family, friends?"

The next FrIDeATe gathering will be held on Friday, Oct. 23 from 5 to 6 p.m. Stop by the IDeATe Commons (Hunt Library A1) for food, connection, and community.