Category
Seminiars
Trade Day Events
Workshop
Seminiars
Unspecified (top)
The Interplay Of Mechanics & Narrative In Games
When designing a game, should you start with the mechanics or the story? Why not both? Come learn how narrative and mechanics can blend together to form a whole greater than the parts.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 120 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
More Than Alt Text: Designing For Accessibility
Join our experts as we examine what it means to make a game accessible.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 100 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Practical UI/UX for Game Design
A user interface can make or break a game, enabling a great game to shine or causing it to crash & burn. Learn how to spend your time & make good UI/UX choices across the game design lifecycle.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 100 tickets
Game Theory For Gamers: Decisions, Strategies, & Payoffs
This session will provide an introduction to formal Game Theoretics as used in the social sciences and explore how choices impact the player experience.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 100 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Nature Systems Game Design
Elizabeth Hargrave relates how she goes about translating cool things in nature into the form of a game - then practice brainstorming your own ideas for nature-based games from prompts she provides.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 75 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Get The MOST Out Of Your Playtests
Whether you are a new designer or an experienced one, we will focus on key behaviors and actions to ensure you get the most out of your playtests.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 70 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Practice, Practice, Practice (Iteration In Game Design)
Discussion on techniques for rapid iteration in game design, and the importance of time in the lab.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 60 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
The Aesthetics Of Chance (Why Games Have Randomness, Whether You Like It Or Not)
Discuss the basics of probability, psychology, and the factors that make chaos a crucial element of games. Learn how to use randomness in your design, how not to do it, and the reasons why.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 60 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Trade Day Events
Unspecified (top)
Sunday Office Hours - Theme: Final Submissions & Reflection
This is your last chance to polish your work and turn in your final assignments. You’ll have time to reflect on your creative process, share insights with peers, and present your projects.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 120 tickets
Thursday Assignment Session - Theme: Game Design Foundations
Kick off with an immersive dive into the fundamentals of game design. Explore core mechanics, player psychology, theme development, & what makes a game meaningful. Today sets the stage.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 100 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Thursday Office Hours - Theme: Game Design Foundations
Have questions about your homework/quests? Drop in during Office Hours for one-on-one guidance, feedback, or just to bounce ideas around.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 100 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Friday Assignment Session - Theme: Rapid Prototyping & Testing
Move from concept to cardboard as you design, prototype, & test your game ideas. A hands-on day focusing on iteration, learning from playtests, & embracing failure as part of the design process.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 100 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Friday Office Hours - Theme: Rapid Prototyping & Testing
Have questions about your homework/quests? Drop in during Office Hours for one-on-one guidance, feedback, or just to bounce ideas around.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 100 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Saturday Assignment Session - Theme: The Game Industry Ecosystem
Zoom out to examine the broader landscape from indie publishing & crowdfunding to manufacturing, marketing, & community mgmt. Today’s quests will send you out to look at everything around the games.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 100 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Saturday Office Hours - Theme: The Game Industry Ecosystem
Have questions about your homework/quests? Drop in during Office Hours for one-on-one guidance, feedback, or just to bounce ideas around.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 100 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
How To Build Worlds For Games: Some Considerations & Pitfalls
We'll explore how to build game worlds, looking at examples from both tabletop and video gaming.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Converting Ideas & Inspiration Into Playable Mechanics
Explore methods to move quickly & thoughtfully from ideas & inspiration to a playable mechanic. Identify the bldg blocks of your core game loop, define constraints, make a prototype, & find the fun!
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Mechanisms Make It Go: Balancing Complex Causality With Playability
Explore the relationships between game mechanisms, verisimilitude, and playability. We will examine how slight tweaks to your primary mechanism can change the operation of your game.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Crafting Compelling Games: What Makes Players Stay?
Focusing on player motivations, reward systems, player types, and psychological and emotional drivers, we will explore the key factors driving player engagement.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Board Game Rapid Prototype Workshop
You CAN make a board game prototype from scratch in less than an hour, for fun or educational purposes.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
The Aesthetics Of Chance (Why Games Have Randomness, Whether You Like It Or Not)
Discuss the basics of probability, psychology, and the factors that make chaos a crucial element of games. Learn how to use randomness in your design, how not to do it, and the reasons why.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 60 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Traditional & Abstract Game Design (Adding Is Easy, Subtracting Is Hard)
Explanations about the process for creating new games in the traditional style, using Tak and other examples from his catalog. Learn how game designers get maximum value from the simplest rules.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Practice, Practice, Practice (Iteration In Game Design)
Discussion on techniques for rapid iteration in game design, and the importance of time in the lab.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 60 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Educational Games & Crafting Curriculum
Using the curriculum guide created for the game, Five-Hundred-Year-Old Vampire, Dr. Jason Cox will illustrate a process for adapting games into a curriculum.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
So You Want To Build A Game: Getting Started With Rapid Prototyping
You are a game designer, and in this session, we will prove it to you by showing you how to prototype some of those ideas you have floating around in your bag of holding.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Game Theory For Gamers: Decisions, Strategies, & Payoffs
This session will provide an introduction to formal Game Theoretics as used in the social sciences and explore how choices impact the player experience.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
My Experience Publishing Games As An Independent Designer
An independent game designer is responsible for design, development, & management of all design & business aspects - conception to completion. Learn what to look out for from someone who has lived it.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Goal-Driven Development
Good iterative development requires remaining both focused & agile. We will discuss & workshop a framework for creating effective goals that act less like an end point & more like guiding pillars.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Thinking Of Your Game As A Product
How do you take your game from prototype to product? We’ll get you thinking about what goes into making a game retail ready, from cost considerations to box design and consumer appeal.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Using Games To Teach
By incorporating strategy, teamwork, and critical thinking, board games provide an interactive and fun way to enhance learning outcomes and foster collaboration in the classroom.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
The Interplay Of Mechanics & Narrative In Games
When designing a game, should you start with the mechanics or the story? Why not both? Come learn how narrative and mechanics can blend together to form a whole greater than the parts.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Advanced Iterative Playtesting
Professional developers lead a deep dive into iterative design principles and editing with a focus on tools, processes, and communication across teams.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
How To Develop For IP & Theme
Learn about professional game development w/a focus on how to highlight the themes of an IP. Learn a better understanding of development; feel empowered to use that knowledge in your work & pitches.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Make It, Make Sense - Intutive Design
What visual information & prior knowledge of expected meaning in games can you tap into to make your game intuitive? In this hands-on workshop create a game that can be played without written rules.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Beyond the Board: Designing Games Beyond Dice & Cardboard
Crafting toyetic games requires thinking beyond the conventional realm of dice & cardboard. Explore the potential of transforming everyday toys into engaging gameplay experiences.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Trouble in Dodge City: How Do You Design Meaningful Choices?
Get your hands dirty by fixing a "broken" game. Through changing rules, iterating, & playtesting, learn what makes game choices fun while we practice core design skills useful for any game project.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Loss Aversion & Player Psychology
We’ll examine board games and other relevant game-like experiences to explore framing, regret, competence, and other effects, and their relation to players' relationship with the game experience.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Cardboard AI
This presentation will survey the history of these opponents since the 1960’s, and how clever design has enabled increasingly robust AI's that are capable of challenging and surprising human players.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Practical UI/UX For Game Design
A user interface can make or break a game, enabling a great game to shine or causing it to crash & burn. Learn how to spend your time & make good UI/UX choices across the game design lifecycle.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Know Your Audience : Lessons Learned
As a game designer, knowing your audience includes the player, publisher, retailer, & buyer. Learn the needs of each of these audiences to turn your game from prototype to marketable product.
- Wed 60 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
From Game Idea to Prototype
In this hands-on workshop for beginner designers, learn from how to create a game prototype from provided materials.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 50 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Get The MOST Out Of Your Playtests
Whether you are a new designer or an experienced one, we will focus on key behaviors and actions to ensure you get the most out of your playtests.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 40 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
BattleBattle! - How Do You Balance a Massively Complicated Game?
In this hands-on game design workshop, we will be taking on this kind of problem as we collaboratively balance a large-scale character battling game.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 40 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Nature Systems Game Design
Elizabeth Hargrave relates how she goes about translating cool things in nature into the form of a game - then practice brainstorming your own ideas for nature-based games from prompts she provides.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 30 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Workshop
Unspecified (top)
Bepuzzling Your Game
Come partake in an original puzzle hunt followed by some discussion of how to craft and use puzzles in your designs.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 80 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
BattleBattle! - How Do You Balance a Massively Complicated Game?
In this hands-on game design workshop, we will be taking on this kind of problem as we collaboratively balance a large-scale character battling game.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 70 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Beyond the Board: Designing Games Beyond Dice & Cardboard
Crafting toyetic games requires thinking beyond the conventional realm of dice & cardboard. Explore the potential of transforming everyday toys into engaging gameplay experiences.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 60 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
From Game Idea to Prototype
In this hands-on workshop for beginner designers, learn from how to create a game prototype from provided materials.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 25 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Thursday Office Hours - Theme: Game Design Foundations
Have questions about your homework/quests? Drop in during Office Hours for one-on-one guidance, feedback, or just to bounce ideas around.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 20 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Friday Assignment Session - Theme: Rapid Prototyping & Testing
Move from concept to cardboard as you design, prototype, & test your game ideas. A hands-on day focusing on iteration, learning from playtests, & embracing failure as part of the design process.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 20 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Friday Office Hours - Theme: Rapid Prototyping & Testing
Have questions about your homework/quests? Drop in during Office Hours for one-on-one guidance, feedback, or just to bounce ideas around.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 20 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Saturday Assignment Session - Theme: The Game Industry Ecosystem
Zoom out to examine the broader landscape from indie publishing & crowdfunding to manufacturing, marketing, & community mgmt. Today’s quests will send you out to look at everything around the games.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 20 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Saturday Office Hours - Theme: The Game Industry Ecosystem
Have questions about your homework/quests? Drop in during Office Hours for one-on-one guidance, feedback, or just to bounce ideas around.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 0 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 20 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets
Thursday Assignment Session - Theme: Game Design Foundations
Kick off with an immersive dive into the fundamentals of game design. Explore core mechanics, player psychology, theme development, & what makes a game meaningful. Today sets the stage.
- Wed 0 tickets
- Thurs 20 tickets
- Fri 0 tickets
- Sat 0 tickets
- Sun 0 tickets