GGJ NEXT™ Curriculum

We have established an MVP Curriculum to teach the basics - We don't expect to turn Middle School Teachers, High School Librarians and Girl Scout Troop Leaders into Game Design experts. But we do want to give them enough of an understanding that they can teach the concept to their students. This is the collective work of volunteers who are all skilled educators. We know that we will need to iterate upon this and welcome suggestions for future years, please feel free to reach out to us at questions@globalgamejam.org.

Jamming

JM0 - What does it mean to Jam?

JM1 - Answering questions on how games are made and how everyone works together?

JM2 - Improvisation & Icebreakers.

JM3 - Getting ready for your 1st Game Jam.

Game Design

GD0 - So you want to be a Game Designer?

GD1 - How to play as a designer rather than a player.

GD2 - Iterative design and rapid prototyping.

GD3 - The role of playtesting.

GD4 - The 5 parts of a game: framework of goal, space, components, rules and mechanics.

GD5 - The goal of a game and game genres.

GD6 - Game mechanics and rules.

GD7 - Space and components.

GD8 - Scope, how to keep your game plans under control.

GD9 - Games as complex systems.

GD10 - The MDA framework.

GD11 - Game narrative.

Analog Game Making

AG0 - Paper prototyping.

AG1 - Creative designs and diverse materials.

AG2 - Getting past Candyland mechanics.

AG3 - Writing rulebooks.

Making Digital Games with Visual Tools

PG0 - What is game programming?

PG1 - Importing sprites and sounds; creating objects, adding some basic events and behaviors; creating a single-screen non-scrolling room and adding objects to it; running the game.

PG2 - Scrolling and otherwise dealing with things off-screen, collisions, and a handful of other events/behaviors.

PG3 - Paths, timelines, alarms, and other timing-related stuff.

PG4 - Variables, functions, scripts, basic visual language programming.

PG5 - Advanced GML, drag-and-drop functionality and the help system and MISC. to learn anything else thats missing in these tutorials.

Making Digital Game with Coding and Scripting

CP1 - Variables, basic arithmetic, basic text input/output.

CP2 - Flow control - if, for, while.

CP3 - Functions and parameters.

CP4 - Arrays.

CP5 - Objects and Classes.

CP6 - Game loops (real-time and turn-based) introduce concept of game libraries.

CP7 - Dealing with 2D graphics in one or more libraries, along with the theory of what’s actually going on here.

CP8 - Basic physics, collisions, etc… in algorithms and in one or more libraries.

Visual Arts

VA0 - What is Visual Art in Games (focus on 2D ATM).

VA1 - Found Art - how to use them in your game.

VA2 - How to trace over a reference image on a separate layer and creating stylized cartoon drawings.

VA3 - How to use a lasso / magnetic lasso to cut a portion of one piece of art out and insert it into another.

VA4 - Tile sets (tips for how to make repeating background tiles that match up), sprite sheets, 2D animation cycles.

VA5 - How to export your work so that it can be imported into a game.

VA6 - Misc./Other.

Audio

AU0 - What is Audio? Voice recording vs. Music composition vs. Foley. Common file formats.

AU1 - AudaCity - Download and Install it, playing with controls and the basics of audio.

AU2 - Found Sound and Audio Libraries. Importing Audio Files, clipping and sampling.

AU3 - Recording tips. Microphones, Optimization, Settings.

AU4 - Processing. Apply Filters and Special Effects.

Production

PD0 - What is Production?

PD1 - How-to guide for how to be a producer on a project during a game jam, things like how to make a list of tasks, delegating tasks, how to access dependencies and critical path. Diplomacy, how to be nice when you're bugging people about getting their status or cutting features when they're falling behind.

PD2 - Primer for using some specific software tool for game dev: Excel,Trello, Slack, Discord.