Dr. Carmine Guida, Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Seidenberg who will be spearheading our new Game Development program, recently held a “playtesting” event for his "CIS 151: Game Development for Everyone" course.
This course introduces students to basic programming and the Unity game engine, with a heavy focus on project-based learning. Throughout the semester, students get to develop several smaller games, then dedicate the final couple of weeks to a final project.
This final project is called "Student's Choice," which means that the students get to choose the type of game they will develop. These choices include a wide variety of genres and styles: from platformers and top-down games to first-person and puzzle games. As part of this process, students first develop a small prototype, then have a playtesting session where their classmates, faculty, staff, and other students get to test out their games and provide them with feedback. As Dr. Guida put it, "when making a game it's important to have others play it early in the development process. You don't want to be almost done and then find out your target audience doesn't know where they are supposed to go or what they are supposed to be doing."
He added that as a developer, it is important to put yourself in the mind of the player, and to understand the difference between their perception of what needs to be completed in a specific level, compared to the approach of someone who has been developing the entire game for months.
"When you have made the level yourself, you know where the exit is and the fastest path. But players seeing your game for the first-time need clues or hints."
After the successful playtesting event, held in Seidenberg’s Design Factory space (which now also features a Seidenberg student-made arcade machine!), the students were able to modify their projects to make them as complete as possible for their final game presentations on the last day of class.
If you are interested in trying out some of these games for yourself, follow the links below!
Play Game of Quests by Alex Vasilevsky and Nivea Khondaker
You need to complete a couple of side quests (mini games) before you can escape.
Play Multiflasking by Nathan Lanum
The object is to match the amounts on the cauldrons by putting in ingredients
Play Nyctophobia by Alyssa Lahaise and Christian Concepcion
Monsters keep on appearing. How do you make them go away?
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