Game Development for All
A course for anyone wanting to get into design of video Games
The “Game Development for All” course is designed to provide anyone who has ever wanted to participate in the art and process of Game Development a gateway to success. No programming experience required! Participants will learn the game development cycle starting with conceptualization of project. Once a idea has been created the course will walk you through all the steps necessary to bring your idea to completion. Once the course is complete you will have successfully published a game or app to the Google Play store!
Layout
This 10 day course consisting of 2 hour classes is broken down into six separate steps. The programming component of the course utilizes Clickteam Fusion 2.5. A revolutionary programming platform that is the engine behind indie game development success stories like Five Night’s at Freddy’s, The Escapists, Freedom Planet, Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures and many others. Clickteam Fusion focuses on project structure and programming logic rather than syntax. This means anyone can participate and create something with no previous programming experience. Students are encouraged to bring their project home and continue the work between classes.
Course Project
During the 10 day course, each user will be responsible for taking a game design idea from concept to finished product. To make this more achievable, game projects will be limited to 2d game ideas that use sprite based graphics. Those who successfully complete a project will have their app published to the Google Play store.
Course Materials
Each Student must bring their own laptops. Windows or Macs are acceptable. Clickteam Fusion 2.5 will be provided to the students for the course.
Minimum Windows System Requirements: Windows 10, 8.x, 7, Vista, XP, 2000 or 98 operating system, 200 Mhz Pentium processor or higher, 32 Mb RAM (256 Mb for XP, Vista and 7). An internet connection is required for installation, updates and to download the software.
Minimum Mac System Requirements: 10.9 OS X or above.
Course Outline
Day 1 - Introduction and Brain Storm: Here we talk a little about the history of video games and game development and the current state of the industry. We will develop several baseline constraints for what can the individual projects can be. Then we begin to brainstorm and settle on a overall project idea.
Day 2 - Design Document: Taking the ideas generated the day before each student will begin building the framework of their project by documenting storyboards, flowcharts and outlines into their projects design document
Day 3 - Learn to Program in Fusion: We will spend the first hour building our first game together in Clickteam Fusion 2.5. No programming experience required. After the first hour you will begin mapping your project ideas to a programmatic structure.
Day 4 thru 8 - Develop your Project: During this four day stretch, we will work on bringing our project to life, using our design documents as a guidepost to building the app. The instructor will be available to provide one on one attention to student developers and assist with completing the project in Fusion.
Day 9 - Polish & Testing: With our projects near completion, Students will test each other's projects and learn how to provide critical feedback and bug reports. We will discuss different methods & strategies for maximizing debugging and polish time.
Day 10 - Best Practices & Release: We will discuss winning strategies for successful releases on different platforms. The class concludes with everyone publishing their projects to Google Play!