Game Design ‘At-Home’

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This online game design course for young people is designed to introduce the basics of building and publishing storytelling games online

Part 1: Bitsy

This video will provide a beginner’s introduction to Bitsy, a free game-making tool. Bitsy runs in the browser so there is no need to download anything.

We encourage you to follow along and try to make your own game. When you’ve finished, use the link to send us what you’ve created.

Part 2: Pen and Paper

In this video we explore different ways of adapting games you might already know, and creating new ones using only simple materials like pen and paper, or a deck of cards.

We encourage you to follow along and try to make your own game. When you’ve finished, use the link to send us what you’ve created.

Part 3: Twine

In this video we explore the online tool Twine, introducing techniques you can use to write interactive fiction and games.

We encourage you to follow along and try to make your own game. When you’ve finished, use the link to send us what you’ve created.

Part 4: Inform7

In this video we explore the natural language programming tool, Inform7. We’ll introduce techniques you can use to write interactive fiction and games.

We encourage you to follow along and try to make your own game. When you’ve finished, use the link to send us what you’ve created. We’ll give feedback on these in the next video!

Course Summary

Using open source and experimental tools to discover game design, this FREE course will take you through the basics of building and publishing story-telling games and interactive content online.

Each week we invite participants to submit or share completed projects with us. These will then be featured in the next episode.

You can submit completed projects here.

Each session will include a video approx. 20-30minutes long

Schedule

  • 12 May Bitsy
  • 19 May Pen ‘n’ Paper
  • 26 May Twine
  • 2 June Inform

Using these resources

These workshops are aimed at ages 12+. A parent or carer should ensure that the websites linked are used responsibly.

We will endeavour to use tools and software that are freely accessible, and compatible with a wide range of systems.

For most of the sessions it is likely that you will need access to a computer and the internet.