Course Introduction and Planning

Game Jams and Skilling Up

Set your goals and find your community

In this project you will learn about what's ahead for you on your journey to finishing a game! You'll also get a chance to confirm that you have the right knowledge and skills to get the most out of the course, along with links to useful resources that will help you on your way. You will also learn how to equip yourself for your journey, and meet some of your fellow adventurers.

Goal Setting and Community Building

What is the Design Process? 

Scope

Constraints and Our Theme

Concentric Design

Why Prototype? 

Assets shouldn't be liabilities

The Stages of Game Development

Planning your project

CRC Cards

Your First Milestone: Vertical Slice

Why Agile?

Vertical Slice - Part Two

Refactoring

Sprint Planning

Alpha Build

What is Playtesting?

How To Playtest

Sprint Plan

Review and Redesign

How to Release your Game

Alpha and Beyond

Bonus Content

In this project you will learn about using a design process to take your idea from a broad concept into a finished, polished game, the concept of scope will help you achieve your goal of making a game, how constraints can help you create rules to keep you in scope,  and how to use the specific design process, concentric design.

The Design Process

In this project you will find out if your game idea is fun through Prototyping. You will also learn how to make a plan for assets you will use in your game – the sounds, images, models, animations and other resources that make up a game – to avoid nasty surprises later in development. 

Prototyping

In this project you will learn how to keep a sense of the big picture by dividing the game development process into stages and milestones, hit your first major milestone in the development of a game through creating a vertical slice, and learn two planning tools you can use to plot a course to a finished game. 

Milestones

Agile Development

Professional teams schedule some time for code cleanup after each milestone so their code stays flexible and easy to work with. This project will give you some tips and general principles for this process, known as refactoring. With your vertical slice done and your code in good shape, this is where you’ll start down the road to alpha.

Writing Better Code

Playtesting is more than just asking people if your game is fun. It's a structured process for collecting useful information about specific parts of your design. In this project you will learn why Playtesting helps you collect useful information on your design and how to execute the entire process. 

Playtesting

In this project you will learn how to release your game, what the next steps are after game release, and additional tips for getting to the end. 

Release your game

Lots of people start games, but it’s surprisingly hard to finish one. This course guides you through the process used by professional game makers to develop their ideas, keep their projects on track and deliver a complete, released game. 

Explore the Unity Asset Store for game toolkits and template assets that will help you quickly design and prototype your games. These resources can accelerate your development process and help you achieve your goal of releasing a polished game!

Design and Publish Your Original Game: Unity USC Games Unlocked

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Game Jams

Refresh Your Skills

In this tutorial you will learn about Game Jams as well as resources to help you make sure you have the necessary skills to successfully complete this course. 

Unity + USC Games Unlocked

Find_a_Game_Jam.pdf

Refresh_Your_Skills.pdf

As you learned, since this course is designed like a game jam, we’d suggest that you participate in a couple of game jams beforehand to get an idea of what they’re about. Game jams are contests where individuals try to make a video game from scratch. They usually have a time constraint. Some game jams are organized for individuals while others you can participate as a team.

Here are some resources for finding game jams. 

Indiegamejams is a comprehensive and frequently updated list of game jams both around the world and online. http://www.indiegamejams.com/ 

This subreddit is updated less regularly than indiegamejams, but it is another good source for finding jams. https://www.reddit.com/r/gamejams/ 

Ludum Dare is a very popular long-running online jam and community. The “competition” (which is very supportive) runs every three months and lasts for 72 hours. The community submits ideas for themes and then votes to select a new theme each time. https://ldjam.com/ 

Global Game Jam is the biggest game jam event in the world. It takes place every January, with locations all around the world (as well as online) and thousands of participants. https://globalgamejam.org/ 

Itch.io hosts dozens of game jams at any given time, all online. https://itch.io/jams

Challenge hosted by Unity in June 2020

Following form the self-assessment and Learning Action Plan you created you should be aware of what skills you need to refresh, or even learn from scratch. Below are some recommended resources to make sure you're ready to complete this course. 

Unity Learn - Unity’s Learn platform provides access to a variety of real-time 3D online learning. Recommended content to work on if you need to brush up your skills in addition to or prior to completing this course include: 

Unity Projects - Projects walk you through the creation of a full Unity application, with opportunities to mod and experiment. Search by particular areas of interest and use the filtering tools to help you find a project that suits your needs.

Create with Code Course - Learn how to program your own exciting project from scratch with C#. 

Beginner Fundamentals: Unity Game Dev Course - The projects in this course will familiarize you with the Unity toolset and how to begin creating interactions in your games. 

Brackeys YouTube Tutorials - YouTuber Brackeys has partnered with Unity to make a series of beginner and intermediate tutorials, starting with this whirlwind introductory series. In ten very short videos it goes through all the steps of making a basic game. 

The Ultimate Guide to Game Development with Unity This short Unity-authorized course is ideal for people who are just beginning with Unity. It goes step-by-step through building a 2D space shooter game and the beginning of a 3D first person shooter, and demonstrates how to implement a few common features like a pause menu and high scores.

Game Jams and Skilling Up

1. Game Jams

2. Refresh Your Skills

Complete this tutorial