About this course: Start creating your world. A game world is not just a backdrop for your game—be it minimal or detailed, contained or part of a much bigger universe, it provides the context for your player. Ultimately, a game world should feel alive and wholly unique to any player who will experience it. In this course, we will explore game worlds in existing games and study the art and influences that inform their themes and styles. We will also investigate key components of environment and level design as well as strategies designers use to define gameplay or advance it. We’ll also look at navigation and the elements that make your world as real (or unreal) as you want it to be. A weekly challenge will prompt you to explore styles and inspirations for possible game worlds, and you’ll learn effective ways to communicate your ideas from concepts to presentation-worthy proofs of concept.
Taught by: Théotime Vaillant, Instructor, Experimental Animation
School of Film/Video
| Basic Info |
Course 3 of 5 in the
Game Design: Art and Concepts Specialization.
|
| Language | English |
| How To Pass | Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. |
| User Ratings |
- Video: Course introduction
- Reading: About this course
- Video: Properties and Rules
- Video: Story, the vertical spine
- Reading: Causes and Consequences
- Video: Making a game world
- Reading: Considering Game Worlds
- Reading: Example: Week 1 Assignment
- Video: Don't create from the void
- Discussion Prompt: Finding Inspiration
- Video: Aesthetics & Gameplay
- Video: Clockworks
- Video: Questions
- Video: Back to the rulebook
- Video: Make it yours
- Video: Shuffle your ideas
- Reading: Strategies for shuffling your ideas
- Reading: Example: Week 2 Assignment
- Video: Visualizing the game world
- Video: Level Design
- Video: Bordering the World
- Reading: The Bigger Picture
- Video: The Garden
- Video: Navigation and Time
- Reading: Two types of navigation
- Reading: Level design in local spaces
- Discussion Prompt: Tools of the Trade
- Video: Moveset
- Video: From point A to point B
- Video: Linear vs. Non-Linear
- Video: The Grey Box
- Reading: Example: Week 3 Assignment
- Video: What lives there?
- Video: Anchoring the world down
- Video: An Atmosphere
- Video: Lighting is key
- Reading: In the Shadows
- Video: Colors
- Reading: Color your world
- Video: Final Round
- Reading: Example: Week 4 Assignment
- Reading: Course Credits
Each course is like an interactive textbook, featuring pre-recorded videos, quizzes and projects.
Connect with thousands of other learners and debate ideas, discuss course material, and get help mastering concepts.
Earn official recognition for your work, and share your success with friends, colleagues, and employers.
| Audit | Purchase Course | |
|---|---|---|
| Access to course materials | Available | Available |
| Access to graded materials | Not available | Available |
| Receive a final grade | Not available | Available |
| Earn a shareable Course Certificate | Not available | Available |
Great course to think of the world you want to create and its limitations.
The plus? You don't have to know how to code or to draw well! (I did all my assignments on Paint and my characters were basically stick figures)
The most important is to think of your world, its structure, its boundaries, and the way your characters interact within it.
Wonderful course! Not a lot of theoretical information, but many, many great practical ideas to get a great world started.
Thank you so much for your willingness to do this MOOC. What an enlightening experience!
Too Much!!
Very, very good.
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it is useful but very very basics