So, I'm a graduate student at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, and I'm taking a Media Studies class called "Metagames: Games and Play." I was a bit surprised when, on the first day of class, the professor said that part of the curriculum would include a discussion on speedruns and TAS runs, along with watching some of the runs in class. I'm planning on giving a demo of my WIP Final Fantasy II run to the class in order to demonstrate how TAS runs are made, and to show off a variety of the tools we use (re-recording features, RAM watch, lua scripts, debuggers, etc). The run itself is, unfortunately, not very exciting, but I think it would be a good example of things like luck manipulation, glitch exploits, and stuff like that. Anyway, I'm just surprised to have encountered my (rather niche) hobby during my academic pursuits, and in a media criticism class at that (I wouldn't have been as surprised if it was mentioned in, say, a computer or digital arts class). Has anyone else had a run-in with TAS-related things in the course of their studies?
