Video Game Design/Developers

What are your students doing as we finish out the year.

My Game Dev 1 classes are doing a tabletop game jam. I used a randomizer to spit out a prompt for each period. 3rd period is doing "Chaos", 4th is "Darkness"

My Game Dev 2 (Graphics) students propose their own final, so they are making a variety of pixel art stuff and blender things.

Level 1: presenting to a panel their board/card game based on an historical event. They have been working on these games for 6 weeks on and off and have to produce the game with accompanying art and physical assets, a rules document (hardest part of the whole process), and a Sell Sheet for marketing.

Level 2: adding functionality (some stuff I covered, some I didn't so they have to research) to some of their prototypes from throughout the semester (different enemies, making things spawn at different rates/percentages, randomizing colors of assets, etc.). These are all in Unity.

Level 3: Mad dash to get their projects done for SkillsUSA. Working in teams of 2-4 they have built puzzle-platformers with steampunk aesthetics. They have to submit: a truly long game design doc from a provided template, a marketing plan, a 5-7 minute video about their design and project outcomes, a portfolio of level design and concept art, and a game prototype with core functionality. It is A LOT this year. When we return from break they have to get their resumes done and probably a another take of their videos to turn in everything Friday January 10th.

My Game Design students are working on finishing their personal project in Unity.  They have do develop a game that is at least playable. I'm not worried about whether they get the visuals perfected, just something that they designed and uses code.

In my CSA class, as a fun end of semester project, we are re creating the school, to scale, with Minecraft Education.  Its a fun team effort.

That sounds awesome building out the school like that.

sweet, I will check it out when I get home!

These are really neat!   How did you get the games to the point where they can be accessed just via the internet?  

Is there a certain way to publish them and post them?

(I'm in my second year of offering Game Design and I'm hoping I have 1 or two that can be published by the end of the year)

What grade level are the students, and is this their first year? The diver game is really impressive.

No Prereqs sounds like a nightmare.

Year 1 students worked for 4-6 weeks on and off on an analog game based on an Historical Event. They made all the art assets by hand, did a cost projection of print costs on GameCrafter, made a rules doc with illustrations, a one-page sell sheet, and each team presented their game to a panel for 10ish minutes the day of the final. The best games this year were a game about oil extraction in Abu Dhabi (mechanically light, but good art/documentation), Arab Spring (area control), Chernobyl (weak game but crushed their artwork and presentation).

2nd years had coding tasks to complete like adding a new enemy to a game they did previously, adding buttons to the UI, and adding new collectables.

3rd years were finalizing their submissions for SkillsUSA, so Unity builds, marketing plans, design documentation, resumes; it's a whole thing.