LIVE ONLINE COURSE
Brainstorm stories, rules, and challenges that engage and entertain your player personas.
Join Rob Gallerani, Senior Principal Game Designer at Blizzard Entertainment, to concept game stories that sell.
What’s the full scope of Game Design? Learn all the hats a designer wears and practice everything from business models to basic prototyping.
Got some ideas? Great! Get hands-on experience with conception as you build a portfolio-ready game and review it with Rob.
Expand your practical game knowledge on best practices and tools as you learn the ropes of working for a large game company.
The industry is booming! Over 3 billion people play video games worldwide. Get a modern bird’s-eye view of rules, mechanics, and plots that will allow you to evoke the right aesthetics.
Personalized feedback. Group discussions. Networking opportunities. All are available when you hop in the ELVTR and join us!
The icing on the cake? Job interview tips!
Lay the groundwork for a game by actualizing profitable player personas and pitching your creation to your team. Also, practice unraveling any complex game when you turn a digital game into a card prototype.
Prove you’ve mastered game logic. Create an executable card or board game or challenge yourself to develop a video / mobile game design underneath real-world time constraints that you can show your next employer.
Learn how to sell yourself to game companies. With direct feedback from Rob, he’ll show you how to interview successfully and provide recommendation letters to outstanding students.
Learn about the roles, needed contributions, and expectations of a game designer during game development.
Break down the metrics of successful game design and learn to gauge its performance and target audience consistently.
Assignment #1: Define the type(s) of fun you want your game to be. Outline your game pillars, and who it is for.
You can’t have a game without a business model. Find out why. Get knowledge about standard business models and learn how to integrate them into your games.
Experiment with the brainstorming techniques that top companies use to set a vision for their game.
Assignment #2: Define your business model. Create 2-4 wholly unique Game Design Document (GDD) first paragraph ideas.
When you pitch your game, you also pitch its narrative. Learn what a narrative consists of and how it’s more than just dialogue.
Assignment #3: Pick one of your game ideas and create a pitch deck of 5 slides. Choose PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides, or any alternative tool. The pitch should take no longer than 3 minutes. Get ready to present in the next class!
There’s no “i” in “team”, but there is in “excitement” and “vision”. In this class, you’ll practice pitching exciting ideas and coming up with ways to test them.
Take your original game idea and dive deeper into it. Use your newly discovered prototyping techniques to flesh out initial ideas and develop game rules.
Assignment #4: Write your Game Design Document (GDD) between 1-4 pages. This should cover all mechanics and rules, and have an example or two using personas.
In this class, you’ll learn the relationship between rules and player behavior. You’ll also get a better grasp on player motivation loops and how to adjust them to your original game.
Here’s your chance to improve! This lesson will teach you how to ask the right questions and draw out useful feedback from playtesting and data collection.
Assignment #5:
Step 1. Define what 2-4 questions need to be solved with your prototype, and how you can find the answers quickly.
Step 2. Create and play your paper prototype at least 3 times. Observe and write down desired, undesired, and unexpected player behaviors.
Step 3. Play your game again, and try to change certain mechanics to impact the way players are playing the game. Adjust your GDD accordingly and submit it with a note on what has been improved.
As the game designer, you dictate player behaviors. It’s time to figure out what changes encourage or discourage certain actions.
In this lesson, you’ll navigate the skills that a player must execute to perform certain moves and actions.
Let’s start some problems…for the players, of course. You’ll go over the tools provided to your players to help them problem-solve and create tasks that challenge them.
This class will focus on puzzle design. You will learn to add secrets, mental puzzles, or other tests of logic to your game.
Assignment #6:
Part 1. Update your Game Design Document (GDD) with metrics. This should set the guidelines for any AI, level, or other challenge creation.
Part 2. (optional)
Create a puzzle or riddle. It can be part of your project game design or an independent challenge.
Now that you’ve learned the fundamentals you’ll have the opportunity to adjust them as you approach a mobile-centric game.
You’ve leveled up your games, and now it’s time to level up your career! By the end of this class, you’ll feel confident knowing how to land a job in the industry.
Assignment #7: Go make great games! Finalize the sample Game Design Document you created in this course and add it to your portfolio or online profile (e.g. LinkedIn). Submit your portfolio or online profile for review.