My problems are moreso regarding my peers, as the course itself is fantastic, and this presenter is by far the most enjoyable to listen to and therefore easiest to absorb information from.

The bulk of the assignments being submitted by my peers shows little to no effort at all (a shocking quantity of which being directly copy-pasted from Wikipedia or outright blank fields), and yet my own assignments are being nit-picked to a disheartening degree. Enthusiasm and attempting to go above and beyond the requirements is frequently punished, and if I'm busy due to work or focusing on other courses and end up needing to submit later, I've had assignments reviewed by a single person; since there are no additional opinions to provide an average, my entire grade hinges on the opinions of a sole peer. I feel that assignments shouldn't be allowed to be counted as graded until they receive a set amount of reviews to allow for a peer average. We're students, so no single one of us is qualified to be a end-all-be-all judge of one another.

I feel that I must scrutinize Coursera itself in that this is a poorly-balanced system of grading, which should in all honesty be done by faculty. Seeing as how we're not paying for staff to perform the grading, I fail to see how this merits an ongoing subscription when the experience is equitable to purchasing a DVD set and book on a DIY course which one could share with a friend and turn to one another for peer review, without the looming stressor of arbitrary deadlines.

This is very disappointing.

I found that the portion of the class that taught story-telling was painfully over simplified. I learned nothing and felt no challenge whatsoever, in fact, I felt as though I was rehashing information from a 9th grade English class (no hyperbole). The other component of this class was learning how to create documents that you could use to pitch your game to developers. I found this component to be useful, but it could have easily been compressed into a single week if not a single lecture. There is no real accountability when it comes to grading work, as work is peer graded and students grade capriciously without regard for the criteria laid out in the lecture. In other words, most students responded to how cool or interesting they found my assignments, without regard for the weekly lecture or the grading criteria. It often felt as though the lectures didn't matter at all. Right when the class begins to introduce a more robust tour of laying out a game story, it suddenly ends. This class is only useful to students who are interested in an area of game design besides writing and who are taking the whole series anyway. If you are seriously interested in writing, this class will have little value for you and I would recommend skipping it.

This is so helpful. It covers all the essentials of developing a good story, applicable in any form of media, then it focuses on converting the story to a game by adding interactive gameplay elements.

The content is good but is too focus in the 3 act structure, and don't explain the narration techniques specifically to videogames genres. The assignments were too repetitives and don't add variety or feeling of progression through the course. I recommend the course for who don't know the basis of the narrative structure, but not for people like me who work in the audiovisual world.

Such a boring course. No challenge at all, no meaningful example, and in the end seems that everybody grade without any reason. I don't think I'll finish the specialization, it's too expensive for such a poor quality

I don't feel like I learned a whole lot, there wasn't a lot of new information presented.

The course itself is fun, but the feedback and grading system isn't ideal. I imagine this is more of a flaw with Coursera than the course, but when I put a lot of effort into a piece of writing and the feedback I get is just a keyboard smash like 'ajhdfguy' it's quite disheartening.

The contents is very good, but the time flow management is very poor. The whole point of taking an online course (at least for me) is to do things when I want to. I see grading really following the deadlines ... even when I submit the homework early. Now, if this is an "intelligent" way to make sure people are on the platform long enough to pay some minimum target fee, then charge more from the beginning, but don't waste my time.

Otherwise, maybe peer review is not that efficient. The two star rating is because time is the most valuable resource for any person.

I thought this course was so good! It's the 2nd online course I've ever done, and having ADHD it really helps to be able to do things at my own pace and pause the lectures when needed, so I don't miss anything important.

As for the course itself, I seriously wish there were more, as well as this one having more content. I really loved everything about it, but it was only like 9 hours. I would love to see future narrative design courses here, as well as this one maybe with more content if possible. Assignments were fun and mostly easy, but that was probably because I'm creative and a writer, as well as a big reader and gamer.

Well the course helped me to learn and practice how to develop a couple of characters briefly in order to start writting a story. It teaches a good scheme to follow and a method to achieve it succesfully.

What I lack most from this courses in Coursera is to receive more feedback, specially feedback from people who has some advanced knowledge in the field, like the teacher. I wouldn't mind to pay the course if I would have this kind of speciallized feedback, but so far I am happy with the free version of the course.

Maybe it's just me, but I like to have a 'checklist' approach to how I write. And this course gave me a checklist through which I can write my story and characters for a video game. The Instructor was very knowledgeable as well, and taught through examples. And there was ample time to workshop what we learned. I thoroughly enjoyed the course and I'm leaving it feeling heavier with knowledge.

Once upon a time, Calarts was my grad school, and I got the MFA gladly. Years later, I needed to up my skills, and I discovered Coursera had many of the classes I wanted to take-- and now I feel like my MFA is an MFA+. This course is very good for both the writer and the game maker- and more to the point- it is a great breakdown of what is a good storytelling device. Highly recommended.

I am glad that I have chosen to sign up to this course. It has open up my vision to a whole new world. Thanks so very much. The professor is engaging and the course content is fascinating.

3 first weeks were pretty good, I oonly felt like there was not enough examples and reading materials, I also felt that the 4th week was too condense and unclear i went throguh the 4th week materials twice and didn't get a good sense of what are is expected of us in the last submission.. i improvised as best as i can but i belive the outcome was not good enough, we were suppossed to gamify the story but the instructions were not clear enogh on the how.

Course is nice, but there are too much information, needed to download seperately and quizes pasted in video. It makes this course impossible to pass offline downloading it through the coursera mobile app. It is very uncomfortable when you don't have stable internet connection and have to wait to download everything seperately.

The course is fun, but as the previous part of the specialization a bit simple for what it charges for the certificate.

This course was a little bit a shock for me. It had no continuity with the previous one, which was kinda a pity. Also, I had a hard time with the last two homework of week 3 and week 4, since a ''story'' is imposed to you, and you have to re-write within that...I would have preferred that we did the same exercise with the kid story chosen in the first two lessons(week 1 and 2). I wouldn't recommend it if you have already experience with writing because it was very discouraging for me, I almost wanted to skip the course, but I want that specialization so I had to complete it. But if you don't have experience in writing at all, maybe it could help you because the teacher explains to you his method to help you find your ideas for building your narrative, and also for describing your characters and their motives etc.

I appreciate knowing more now than I did before about story writing. I know better now how to approach assessing a story and critiquing it, and I really want to work on a story of my own next!

Not going to lie, though, this course was difficult to immerse myself in simply because of the examples: I'm not into guns, not into muscle, not into violence, and every single example was either of men, or how a female's mission centered around the men in her life. If I could suggest a change in this course, it would be to consider all the different backgrounds of the people taking the course, and give examples that are more inclusive.

Although I did enjoy the challenges proposed, the content was rather basic. I feel like the work we've done on week 1 and 2 where wasted as soon as week 3 came. My suggestion is to integrate all the challenges. I'd only suggest this course for real beginners.

Concepts are interesting, the assignments are not. Writing and re-writing about the teacher's generic game example. Not much opportunity to work on your own content.

The course develops skills in communicating video game narratives and weaving these into the overall structure of the game. The strategy hinges on a series of outlines--taught with examples and exercises--that eventually fit together in a comprehensive design document, which allows a designer/writer to organize ideas and make them comprehensible and engaging for potential readers. The examples used are great, covering games both simple and complex; and the exercises grow gradually less structured, ensuring that the skills necessary to develop an idea from scratch are gained along the way.

In this course, I examined how storytelling acts as a vital mechanism for driving video gameplay forward. Looking at several historical and contemporary games, I am able to evaluate and interpret different story styles with the goal of identifying themes and procedures for my own game ideas. I examined traditional narrative story processes, such as three-act structure, and how they fit into game story flows and the strategic elements of gameplay. The last thing, I learned was how to define character, setting, and structure to create a compelling game concept.

As a beginner that continues on the Calarts course, I enjoyed this one no less than the previous one. It may seem, at first, that it's too beginner-friendly but that's exactly what it's supposed to be. I got new insights and valuable instruments that will now help me carve out my stories more methodically, imbuing them with a technological process, taking them from a hobby or a spur of creativity to something actually tangible. Thank you to the course instructor and Calarts! <3

Great introductory course content for Storytelling! It mainly focuses on how we can use a story as a narrative in video games and how it makes the gameplay more interesting! This course helped me create a compelling story for video games. The assignments also keep improving the quality of better writing skills. Brainstorming session I liked a lot because it gives the best option of all. And after that also how we can develop it and convert it into promising gameplay levels.

I really enjoyed this course, and I felt that it helped me see video games from a story-first perspective. I especially liked the concept of "idea sheets" and feel I will apply that to many areas of my creative life. While this class may focus on the foundations of creating stories for games, the structure and guidelines that it provides the writer are invaluable. It is a lot easier to start writing when you break things up as this course shows. Really great experience!