Read below for:
- An overview of the advanced workshop
- Details on presentations, buddy groups, and tips for your work
- Links to your Premium Substack access + optional exercises
- Advanced Graduate Certificate Criteria (requirements to achieve your certificate and graduate status)
Use this form to submit additional work between sessions (see below):
(Deadline: end of day Wednesdays)
WORKSHOP OVERVIEW
The original course was about prototyping through developing your skills and philosophies of game writing; this advanced workshop is about finishing a larger piece of work, which will require a deeper understanding of structure, planning, scope, and audience. There are much larger gaps between each presentation slot: this is designed to help you grow your ability to grow, manage, and sustain your pace of work over longer periods of time without the deadline of a workshop.
MAIN GOAL:
- Your primary objective during this workshop is to develop a completely playable text-based interactive fiction game of approximately 60+ minutes that is in a releasable state. Any remaining plans should purely be enhancements as opposed to core to your vision and narrative.
- You will continue to provide and receive feedback on the writing style and design choices in specific portions of your game
- In addition to this, you will now be providing and receiving feedback on larger concerns of coherency and structure over a longer experience, as well as the impact of scope and depth upon each other’s ability to finish your projects. In effect, acting as pseudo-producers of each other’s work. This aims to develop your critical reflections on your own working practices at the same time.
- You will ideally finish not only with your soon-to-be-released project, but skills and discipline useful in future work of this scale without the need for environments like this to engineer such results.
For more details on the workshop structure, click on the following sections:
THE FLOW OF WEEKLY PRESENTATIONS
TIPS: GETTING STARTED
TIPS: FIGURING OUT PRESENTATION TIMING
TIPS: COMMON GAME WRITING MISTAKES
ONE TO ONE WORK
Throughout this course, you’ll have the opportunity to talk directly with your tutor in your one-to-one Discord channel. This is not intended for technical support, as this course is writing and design focussed, not about guiding you step-by-step through coding. If Google can be used for your query, then use Google!
You should submit any in-depth questions and work via the submission link below. This can include playable portions of your project or planning materials.
Click on each of the following sections for more information and links:
WEEKLY ONE-TO-ONE WORK SUBMISSION LINK
LIFETIME SUBSTACK ACCESS (RECOMMENDED LINKS)
OPTIONAL EXERCISES
Feedback & Follow-Up:
Discussion of one-to-one work and exercises will take place in your One-to-One Discord channel, so ensure your notifications are enabled. If you’ve seen a message from me there but haven’t yet had time to respond, please emoji-react to confirm receipt and avoid miscommunication.
When you receive feedback, you may be asked follow-up questions. Unless directed otherwise, please use the Work Submission Portal to respond. Include answers to all questions in one single submission.
BUDDY SYSTEM
To support your progress throughout the course, you’ll be assigned a buddy group. The goal? To motivate and encourage each other as peers, helping everyone improve their skills and successfully complete their final projects.
This will run via a separate channel on the Discord for you and your fellow buddies. The goal is not to feedback on each other’s presentations in advance of showing them — don’t do that! — the goal is to share progress, support each other, ask questions, and check in to stay on track.
Working together as a group can enhance both the quality of your work and the overall experience of the course. Remember, the more you invest in helping others, the more you’ll grow yourself
IMPORTANT: GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS
To achieve a certificate and ‘graduate’ status, Academy Members must meet the following three sets of requirements between the first and final Zoom group workshops.
Progress updates will be provided towards the end of the course, along with clear recommended actions for meeting any remaining objectives.
Don’t stress—diligently working on your game, listening to feedback, and supporting others will help most members reach these goals!
Click on each of the following sections for more information: