This is an outline for the course that I give students at the beginning of the day.
Introduction to Game Design Using Bitsy
While there is a lot of interest in making games, many find learning the tools to make a game a daunting process. In addition, there is skepticism of the value of making games as an educational endeavor. However, there is much value in making games, particularly in the fields of design and the humanities. Games allow us to tell stories in ways that text cannot. Game making offers creative challenges to solving problems, allowing us to apply our own visual aesthetic to an interactive experience that others can enjoy.
Bitsy is a simple game development platform. How it works, and how it can be used can be learned in approximately one hour. It has a very robust game developer community with over 2500 games hosted on http://itch.io.
Design and the Humanities both share a belief in the necessity of telling stories. Design is also about working with constraints, either situationally, materially or self-defined. Bitsy’s toolset is very basic, which means more can make use of it, and the design constraints it embodies makes it a good platform to learn the basics of game design, with the emphasis on the word “design”.
A student can make their first game in less than a day. The game is fully functional and can be shared with others. There is no special software needed to either make or play a Bitsy game other than a web browser that supports HTML 5, which is any current web browser. Games can even be played on an Android or iOS device.
Students will work in teams of two on their game. You can either have students come up with their own idea for a game (which they often do!), or help jumpstart the process by having students pull two cards each from three different boxes. The boxes contain cards for:
Who are the Characters
What is the Environment
What is the Task
Schedule
Let’s play a game!
30 -minute play session
Play as many Bitsy games as you can in 30 minutes from a pre-defined list.
Some things to watch for:
How does the player navigate?
How does interaction work?
How is the player “clued in” on what to do?
What are objects, and how are they used?
Examine different kinds of visual design that is used.
What are things you can and can’t do?
Making your Bitsy Game (Instructor Demo)
Paper Prototype
Sketch Designs
Develop a Pitch
Feedback
Your First Room
Design your Avatar
Design a Sprite
Make a simple shape using Tiles
Make an item
Animate a Sprite
Working with color palettes
Working with Inventory and items
Add Another Sprite and create dialog
Add additional dialog based on inventory item
Conditional Dialog based on inventory
Play Test
Take a Break
Adding a second room
Copy first room or make a new one?
Changing Palettes for Each Room – or not
Working with Exits
Exits between rooms
Exits in a room
Exits as a way to change something about a room
Reverse Engineer
Take a few minutes to go back and look at a game you liked. Knowing what you know now about how Bitsy works, can you figure out how the game designer accomplished making their game? What “tricks” did they use?
Creating Your First Bitsy Project
Describe in a paragraph the character in your story and what they will be doing. Be sure to include tasks they will be accomplishing, and potential challenges they will face. Frame this inside the capabilities and limitations of a Bitsy game.
One piece of advice is to keep your first game focused – do not try to do everything. That can come with your next game. Think of this first project as an experiment to try out features in Bitsy. While we call creating something in Bitsy a “game”, it doesn’t have to be something that follows the path of a traditional game. Make it an experience that others can enjoy. At the end of this workshop, we will play each other’s games.
Consider using graph paper to do room layout and character design. Paper and pen is often the fastest way of conveying graphical information. Sketch out several designs – you can even cut and paste them together if necessary.
2 Hour Game Jam
Ok, now is the time to make your Bitsy game. A lot can be accomplished in two hours, if you have a good plan. Take what you did with your graph paper, and use that to help with your room design.
45 Minute Critique
After all the games are done (or almost done!) we will do some play testing. One person will play another team’s game in front of the class while you and your fellow students offer feedback and encouragement.