Game Design Course in Minecraft: Learn to Design & Balance Games (8-Session)

These are the students’ learning goals and activities over the course of eight sessions:

— Day 1 - Set Up and Ender Golf - Our primary goal for this day is to assist students in setting up Minecraft and to familiarize kids with our course’s objectives. At the beginning of the class, we’ll introduce kids to Ender Golf and how they can establish rules and controls for a game. Students will then create their own Ender Golf course and learn how to playtest with others.

— Day 2 - Structure - We’ll teach students how to structure their games with a start point and an endpoint. They will then create their own unique parkour courses to playtest and refine with others.

— Day 3 - Concentric Development - Development should start out simple and then expand with details. Students will build a completable dungeon devoid of areas in which playtesters can get stuck on. 

— Day 4 - Formulating Rules - In addition to the dungeons they’ve created last class, students will build out rules for their dungeons and ensure the rules are easy to follow.

— Day 5 - Balance - In this session, students will explore the concept of multiplayer games and discover how to set one up. Students will then create a boat racing track with at least five obstacles in it.

— Day 6 - Variety - The next step is to add variety by implementing shortcuts or alternative paths to the racing tracks that students have created. To avoid confusing playtesters, students should actively avoid overloading the track with shortcuts. 

— Day 7 - Polishing -  What does it mean to polish a game? We’ll show students all of the  different kinds of ways they can polish their favorite mini-games to make their courses unique and one-of-a-kind.

— Day 8 - Showcase Day - This is the day for showcasing and playtesting! Everyone will get to play each other’s courses and provide feedback to each other for future improvements.