Thursday, November 30th

Class Hours: 9:40 – 2:05
Mr. Cronin

Notes

Thursday! Yesterday was an event, I would have much rather been here. All day.
Today after English I am coming around and connecting with you to find out who is going to enter the Pin Design competition. Very smart decision for a student looking to build their Portfolio, enjoys Illustrator – and likes the competitive side of practical art. Create work that people want to pay $ for. That should be your goal in CAWD, college, etc.
English canceled. Mrs. McCadden.

10:05 Attendance and Article

10:05 Unreal

Our main Game Design lesson from a 50,000 foot perspective today is:

“We want to do something, but only when the conditions allow for it to happen.”

If we can learn this lesson, then we open up our specific games to have a host of different functionalities:

Open gate / but only when close enough
Open door to next part of level / but only when I have collected the scroll
Move to the next level / but only when I have collected 3 coins
Turn on jet pack functionality / but only when I have collected the fuel canister.

Remember that we are going to be working with puzzle elements and a vertical based 3rd person game. You are going to start taking your knowledge of general game design, creating your own art, and designing your specific game flavor.

Today we will work with:

Collision boxes
Flip / Flops to open and close a gate
Game Instances? (Maybe if we have time?)
- The idea of saving data between game levels – the Game Instance persists– it isn’t destroyed at the end of the level. A great place to store data like scores, names, inventories, etc.
Faux collectibles to enable the gate (Maybe)

10:50 Morning Break (10 minutes)

10 Minute break – you have to exit the room.
When the door near the TV is open, you are welcome to come back in.

11:00 Illustrator

Pen tool / tracing review
Exporting review
- naming artboards
- multiple exports
Presenting

11:30 CAWD Project: Interactive mechanic to pass

Today and tomorrow you are going to work in Blender and Unreal.

You are going to model something to pass – such as our gate.

Program so that you get close to it, you can use it, and it will open or close. It should not function unless you are close enough to it that it’s a reasonable distance. Don’t allow opening of the door from 34 miles away.

Do an OBS recording of your game mechanic. Demonstrate your programming and your art.

Save your file as lastNameMechanic.mp4.

You are welcome to model your own walls and gate and simply replicate what we did as a lesson, but consider pushing yourself if you are thinking college or a career in the field. Could you make an eleavot, door that moves up / down, etc?

12:25 Lunch

No food in the room / eat in the Cafe.
You are welcome to return to the room when you have finished eating and work / hang out.

12:55 Attendance and Article

1:00 A Gentleman in Moscow

Read along with Mr. Cronin. Improve literacy, word decoding, enjoy a nice story, and unplug from the world.

1:20 Afternoon Break (10 minutes)

10 Minute break – you have to exit the room.
When the door near the TV is open, you are welcome to come back in.

1:30 Speed Design

Speed Designs are 10 minute sprints in CAWD where we practice. It could be any medium – 3D, 2D, video, programming, etc.

1:45 Afternoon Practice & Production

Interactive mechanic
- lastNameMechanic.mp4
DH13: 10 floating boxes / 5 overlapping in 2 Point Perspective
- (lastName)DH13.jpg
Week 13 Agency
- (lastName)Agency_1.jpg
- (lastName)Agency_2.jpg
- (lastName)Agency_3.jpg
- OR Pin Design Agency work

2:20 Dailies

2:25 “19 Minutes”

4 of 5 days per week we will end our day in CAWD with the “19 Minutes” of silent reading. Closing down our day with silent reading provides many benefits:

Improve Literacy Skills / Reading Stamina
Create space for a small reading meditation where we can disconnect from the world and get lost in a story
Unplug

At 2:44 each day I will come to 3 students and ask for a 1 sentence explanation of what happened in your story over that day’s reading session. It is neat to hear little pockets of a story, here and there.