Game Design
I've been designing games since 2017. I've always loved playing board and digital games, but until I started at UA Little Rock, I never knew that game design was something the average person could get learn.
I started out making prototypes in Unity and learning C#. At the same time I was also experimenting with making board games (in one case using tea lights as game pieces!).
Games are filled with technical communication, and games and tech comm have become more closely connected as the field has grown. Besides the fact that programming is technically writing, a lot of other work goes into designing tutorials and narrative in ways that help players get the most out of the experience. The same principles which make good document design are also present in game design.
Games can also teach us a lot about learning. People are naturally drawn to many elements in games (thanks dopamine), which make them extremely useful for teaching and communicating.
learning to code
I started experimenting with a game engine called Ren'Py in 2018 and learned some Python to operate it.
Ren'Py is an excellent tool for making visual novels, but I managed to get some RPG mechanics working with a little modification to the game engine. Ren'Py is made for people who want to tell a story and use big, pretty pictures and animations to do it. This concept worked really well for me, but I wanted more interaction in my games without having to break the engine to get it.
Gameboy dev
In 2019 I started making games for the Gameboy. I started out trying to program them in C, but conveniently a game engine called GB Studio came out that same year to help me along.
My Gameboy games are all playable in the browser on itch.io, but I've also had success running the games on the actual Gameboy hardware.
I find myself drawn to the Gameboy because I love the nostalgia of pixel art. I want to tell stories that are short, but meaningful. Gameboys enforce this limit because the screen is too small for me to get away with writing giant blocks of text.
Gameboy games are simple due to hardware limitations, which forces me to be more creative in both my art and narrative design. The retro art doesn't stop me from tackling modern day topics like social justice. Suffermart, for instance, is filled with commentary about the oppressive systems imbedded in the structure of most corporations. Making games allows me to work within social structures while also critiquing them.
Game jams
Game Jams are timed design challenges that are usually centered around a theme. Game designers are encouraged to collaborate with each other in order to meet the strict deadline requirements and also to share skills.
The Global Game Jam, like other game jams, is a 48-hour event where designers from all over the world are given a theme to design a game around. I've participated in all three of the Game Jams held at the CRUX Lab and have made four games with both solo and team effort. I also made the title screen for someone else's game.
Besides the Global Game Jam, I've also participated in two jams run by the Little Rock Game Designers group. Both of these jams happened on pandemic time, so we were given a little more time to make our games.
About itch.io
Itch.io is the website I use to publish the games I make. Right now, most of my games are browser-based Gameboy games, but Itch also lets users publish text based Print-and-Play games, and basically any kind of art or sound asset.
Itch.io allows creators to set a price for their games, including some Pay what you Want and donation options. It's important for new game designers, writers, artists, and sound designers to have a free space to put their work online that's accessible to the public.
Right now all of my games are free because of how small the projects are. Whenever I make something new that I'm excited about, I post about it on my Twitter page and can link directly to the game. It's a great way to get feedback on what I'm working on since my games are accessible to anyone with a computer or smartphone.