Paper Before Pixels

Week 4 · September 17 · 50 minutes left

  1. Spark
  2. Pre-production today, last day
  3. Playtest
  4. Polish
  5. Ship
  6. Launch

Idea first.

Devices closed. Lids down. Paper and pencil out. The computer does not get a say for the first ten minutes.

Scope small, finish strong.
AI is your assistant, not your author. You decide.
Keep this · Graded

When you see this green tag, it is graded work.

It is due at the end of the semester, so it gets filed in your class folder. Folders stay here on the cart. Nothing graded goes home. Today there are three.

48 left · Before you draw · The game you lock in today has to fit

Sanctified: set apart, made clean, and given a purpose.

Set apart

Picked out from everything else, for a purpose.

sort · choose · protect · keep out

Made clean

Something was ruined, and you bring it back.

clean · repair · restore · rescue

Given a purpose

An ordinary thing gets a new job it was never built for.

build · deliver · rebuild · re-use

Being made

Slow change, and only if you keep coming back.

grow · tend · return · keep

Everyone: one lens, and why.

The one you picked in Week 2, or a better one. It goes on your pitch card today, with one sentence saying why it fits your game.

Grades 6–12: and your verse.

One verse, found by you. It does not have to appear in the game. It has to shape it. The reference goes on your card today.

Graded

Your game fits the theme. You chose a lens and can explain it. Grades 6–12: you chose a verse.

How you read the theme, which lens you picked, and which verse you chose are yours. Nobody grades those. There is no wrong one.

48 left · On paper, ten minutes

Draw your level as a map.

Where the player starts

Where they are going

What is in the way

Boxes and arrows are a perfectly good level. Bad drawing is fine. It has to be yours.

Keep this · Graded · 1 of 3

Your sketch. Name and date on it. File it in your class folder.

It is the proof that the idea was yours before the computer touched it. No sketch, no proof.

What your page needs

Your name · 9/17 START
where the player begins IN THE WAY
what stops them GOAL
where they are going

Label those three things on your map, in words. Anyone should be able to read your page without you there.

38 left · Spark Break

Anything catch your eye while you were drawing that is not your game? Write it down.
Star it if you want to ask me. I come to you first.

36 left · One sentence each, around the room

Your pitch: say your game in one sentence. If it takes two, it is too big.

You are a ______ who has to ______ before ______.

Then the room asks: what is the one thing the player does over and over? That is the core mechanic.

Keep this · Graded · 2 of 3

Your pitch card. This sentence is your final project game.

Name on it, filed in your class folder. It is the game you build from now until December, and the start of your showcase pitch.

Example card

NAMEYour name · 9/17

PITCHYou are a lighthouse keeper who has to relight every lamp before the fog rolls in.

CORE MECHANICClimb.

LENS, AND WHYMade clean, because the lamps went dark and the keeper brings the light back.

VERSE · GRADES 6–12Psalm 119:105

Name, one sentence, one word, your lens and why, and your verse if you are in grades 6–12. This one is taken. Yours is about your game.

Key words

Pitch
Explaining your game in under a minute – or, today, in one sentence. If you can’t say it in one sentence, you haven’t found it yet.
Core mechanic
The one thing the player does over and over. Jumping. Collecting. Sorting. If you can’t say it in one word, you probably have more than one.

36 left · Six jobs in every game studio

Designer

Decides what the game is: the rules, the goal, what the player does.

Artist

Decides how it looks: characters, backgrounds, colors, screens.

Sound

Decides how it sounds: effects, music, the noise that says “that worked.”

Builder

Makes it work: the if-this-then-that rules inside the engine.

Producer

Keeps it finishable: what is in, what is cut, what comes next.

Writer

Decides what it says: the title, the story, every word the player reads.

Every game needs all six done by somebody. In a studio of one, that somebody is you.

36 left · After your pitch, two more sentences

“I’m strongest as the ______.”

“The AI assists me with ______.”

DesignerArtistSoundBuilderProducerWriter

Most of you are a studio of one, so all six jobs are yours. Claim your strength. Name your gap: that is where the AI assists. It assists. You still decide, and you check its work.

Building with a partner? One account holds the project. Each of you still keeps your own sketch, your own card, and your own log.

30 left · Studio · Devices open

Get the assistant to build what is on your paper. Not something good. That thing.

Ask, look, fix the ask, ask again. Keep the paper next to the screen the whole time.

Nothing personal goes into the prompt. Not your name, not your school, not anyone else’s.

Key word

Iterate
Asking again with changes until you get what you want. The first answer is a starting point, not the answer.

18 left · Paper in one hand. Look at the screen.

Missing

What’s on my paper that isn’t on the screen?

Leftover

What’s on the screen that was never on my paper?

Some of what you’re looking at, you asked for. Some of it came with the box. Can you tell which is which?

Key word

Leftover
Something on the screen that you never asked for. It came with the template, nobody removed it, and now it is quietly part of your game. Keeping it is fine – if you decide to.

18 left · Before studio ends

Name three differences. At least one missing, at least one leftover. Fix one.

Fixing means building it or deleting it. Keeping a leftover on purpose counts – if you say so out loud.

Don’t tell me it works. Show me.

6 left · Check

Did it do what you asked?

Show me on your sketch, not on the screen.

Did it hand you something wrong?

Write it down. That page is going to matter.

What do I do first next week?

One line, on your Spark List.

Keep this · Graded · 3 of 3

AI Failure Log, entry one. Everyone needs three by December.

Four lines every time. A leftover counts. File it in your class folder.

Example entry

9/17 · I ASKED“One exit door on the right side of the level.”

IT GAVE METhree doors and a moving platform.

WHAT WAS WRONGTwo doors and the platform were never on my paper.

WHAT I DIDDeleted two doors. Kept the platform on purpose, because it makes the jump harder.

Write what really happened on your screen today, not this. Grades 3–5: two lines are enough. It gave me and what I really wanted.

0 left · Next week

  1. Spark
  2. Pre-production
  3. Production starts next week
  4. Playtest
  5. Polish
  6. Ship
  7. Launch

Production starts.

From next week, every studio minute goes into your final project.

That is the game on your card, in the project you opened today. And you sign up for what you are personally on the hook for. Come with an opinion about that.

Before you leave

Sketch, pitch card, and log entry are filed in your class folder, and your folder is back on the cart.

Your project is saved with a name you will recognize next week.