Enroll in Middle School Game Design with Dolphin STEM Academy
CREATING A GAME
Building on the prior prerequisite course, you will further advance your knowledge of game design! Diving into the development process, you will create details and add component pieces to a game while learning to prototype, troubleshoot, and test. Additionally, you will explore critiquing and advertising a game, strengthening your ability to create a fully functioning game from start to finish.
Unit 1: Get Building!
You built your game design skills and Scratch techniques in the first part of this course. By the end, you wrote your game design document. Now you are ready to start developing that game! First, let’s give your game some movement controls, a start level, a way to keep track of lives, and a game over backdrop.
What will you learn in this unit?
Describe the three main phases of the game development process
Make, refine, and implement a checklist plan for the development of a game
Use programming knowledge of conditional statements and loops to develop a functioning game
Design backdrops and trigger them appropriately
Unit 2: Kick It Up a Notch!
Good to see that you’ve come back to finish what you started! To make your game even more fun to play, we are going to ramp up the difficulty by adding more levels and creating an enemy sprite that’s out to destroy the player character. If the player can make it all the way through your levels, they will get to see the winning screen you create. But the fun doesn’t stop there! After your basic game is working, it’s time to brainstorm ways you can make it even better.
What will you learn in this unit?
Use backdrops to implement level changes
Create an enemy sprite to add difficulty to the game
Define various terms related to improving the game
Middle School Game Design 1b Midterm Exam
Review information acquired and mastered from this course up to this point.
Take a course exam based on material from the first two units in this course. (Note: You will be able to open this exam only one time.)
Produce a list of enhancements that could be implemented in the next unit
Unit 3: Give Your Game Some Swagger!
Once a game has reached the Minimum Viable Product stage it can be played, but it also has plenty of ways it can be enhanced! You can implement all kinds of improvements to make the game more immersive, realistic, aesthetically pleasing, and sticky. There are so many things you can do, it might be hard to decide just what you want to do. There are some techniques that will help you get focused on making some goals for your game improvements. And once you decide what you want to do, you get to head for the fun part—doing it! Afterwards, you’ll make sure your program is bug-free by applying some troubleshooting steps.
What will you learn in this unit?
Make a paper prototype of your game
Choose two lanes of possible improvements
Understand and apply the troubleshooting process
Implement four improvements in your game
Unit 4: The Finish Line!
The game design process is not finished once your game is developed. The fun continues through the post-production phase with testing and critiquing your game. It’s important to remove all the pesky bugs that you can. We want the finished game to run smoothly and fulfill all the requirements. So, get ready to refine your game, add finishing touches, and then advertise it so that people want to play it. You’re almost ready to cross the finish line!
What will you learn in this unit?
Write and implement a test plan
Identify the stages of testing
Critique other people’s games in a constructive way
Categorize, prioritize, and implement critiques on your game
Understand how to advertise your finished game in the Scratch community
Middle School Game Design 1b Final Exam
Review information acquired and mastered from this course up to this point.
Take a course exam based on material from all units in this course. (Note: You will be able to open this exam only one time.)
