Day 4 AM Session Plan

In this session students will learn about the various roles and specializations in the game design industry and make teams accordingly.

Presentation Slides

Session Introduction

SLIDES 1 - 2
TEACHER LED
Start the course with slides 1 and 2 that tells students what they will learn during the course.

What are we doing?

Learning about the various roles and specializations in the Game Design industry
Making Dev Teams that will work together to make a game

Roles and specializations

SLIDE 3
SELF PACED
The self-paced lesson on Roles and Specializations.

Team Formation - Role Preferences

SLIDE 4
TEACHER LED
Decide on two roles which you are most interested:

Designer - More info to come
Artist - More info to come
Animator - More info to come
Sound Designer - More info to come
Programmer - More info to come
Writer - More info to come
Producer - More info to come

Append your preferred roles to your name in the class Discord.
Example: Nathan Drake (Programmer, Sound Designer)

Team Formation - Game Preferences

SLIDE 5
TEACHER LED
Students will enter the voice-channel for the Bouncy Box, Platformer, Dungeon Crawler, FPS, RPG, or Adventure games to find teammates.

Each team should have at least one programmer.

If available, TAs may lead an activity in each voice channel to facilitate the team formation process.

Team Formation - Channels

SLIDE 6
TEACHER LED
After they have created their teams, students will come up with a name for their Game Studio. The name of the studio doesn't need to be related to the name or type of game they are making.

The TA's will create Text and Voice channels for each team.

Game Design - Know Your Abilities

SLIDE 7
TEACHER LED
Students should discuss in their teams what skill sets each individual has and select their roles accordingly.

Game Design - Set Your Goals

SLIDE 8
TEACHER LED
This is not the time to discuss the finer points of the games the teams want to make. Students should discuss in their groups what they want to accomplish together, such as how many levels they want to have complete, or how many separate features they want to have.

If they want to, these teams can stick together after the course and continue to work on their games (i.e. add more levels, new features, or create a new game entirely).

Game Design - Know Your Scope

SLIDE 9
TEACHER LED
Students need to know what they can realistically produce in the time remaining. They should come up with a game concept and determine the minimal viable product needed to test the concept.

Game Design - Know Your Supports

SLIDE 10
TEACHER LED
Students and teams should explore the lessons available for the rest of the course. Keep in mind that instructors and TAs will be available to provide support.

Game Design - Design Under Constraints

SLIDE 11
TEACHER LED
Now that the students know their goals and constraints, they may discuss and come up with a game concept.

Students should come up with a brief pitch and share it with an instructor or TA for feedback.

Teams should assign roles to each student so they know what they're responsible for.

Game Design - Shared Vision

SLIDE 12
TEACHER LED
Students should now have their assigned roles in their teams. The should create a shared Google Doc for the team to use as a Game Design Document. Teams should pin a link to the document in their Discord channels and update it often.

Teams will benefit from deciding on one or two people responsible for updating the GDD.

Game Production

SLIDE 13
TEACHER LED
Students will need to understand the following:

Planning: Schedule and deadlines

Communication: formal and informal

Iterative gameplay testing for QA

Learn and Have fun!