Week 1 Run: Why Failure Feels Bad (and Why We Keep Playing)

The opening run — Juul's paradox of failure, and the question the whole semester keeps circling back to

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22 February 2027

Jesper Juul’s observation is the one the rest of the semester keeps testing: failing at a game feels bad in the moment and is somehow still why people keep playing it. Nobody signs up to lose. Everybody signs up for a game that might make them.

Before the session#

Read the paradox as stated in the lecture, then find one example from your own play history — a game that beat you and that you went back to anyway. Bring it, and bring a guess at why.

In the session#

Short round of examples first, sorted live into a rough taxonomy on the board. Then a walkthrough of the semester’s structure: how the weeks build from “what is failure” to “design one yourself” by week 12.

Afterwards#

The taxonomy from the board becomes the reading for week 2, where it gets a proper name.