Club handbook

Ground rules

• Respect the space and the equipment. No food or drinks near the PCs.
• Sign in at every meeting.
• Take turns on the gaming PCs, and use the same computer each time so your local Unreal Engine files stay put.
• Log in to the Game Design profile.

How meetings work

About twenty meetings run through May, with no meetings on school holidays. A typical meeting mixes software setup, open lab time, short instructor demos on the Smart Board and student presentations.

Meetings are at Da Vinci Charter Academy, 1400 E. 8th Street, Davis, CA 95616.

Choose your path

• Build a 2D game in GameMaker.
• Build a 2D game in GDevelop by following video tutorials.
• Prototype the first level of a game in Unreal Engine.
• Join the team building the club game in Unreal Engine.
• Make 2D or 3D game assets in Adobe or Blender.

Equipment and software

The club has eight PCs with Unreal Engine, GameMaker, GDevelop, Photoshop, Illustrator, Blender and Pro Tools. Students can install free versions on their own laptops too.

Free downloads in the toolkit

Skills to develop

• Unreal Engine: placing sounds, trigger boxes, splines, print strings, enemy damage, HUDs, landscaping.
• Graphics: animated PNG sequences, preparing assets in Photoshop.
• Blender: rigging, UV unwrapping, animated texture atlases.
• Audio: sound design, and bringing your own effects and music into a game.

Have a skill to suggest? Email it in.

How the season ends

Guides and tutorials are optional, and so are presentations, though everyone is invited to show a game analysis or a progress update. The season ends in May with Gaming Day, a game jam where everyone plays what everyone made.