There were over 50 partcipants, laptops at the ready, eager to learn. They were all gathered in Peirce 120 to learn how to make video games, for LearnJam, an event hosted by the Stevens Game Development Club. LearnJam was an all day event, which ran on Saturday, October 25, from 11:00 a.m. through 7:00 p.m., that covered everything you needed to make a game. Instructors skilled in each program taught four 2-hour long classes, providing tutorials and helping students make basic projects.
From 11:00-1:00 p.m. was GameMaker, a game creation system designed to allow its users to create video games without needing an extensive knowledge of programming. It did this through an easy-to-use drag-and-drop system. President of the SGDC, Kevin Quigley, walked students through the creation of a basic shooter game. Then, another member of the SGDC displayed a game he created using GameMaker, about a drunken man making his way through different levels. Not only was it well designed, it was hilarious!
The Blender course, from 1:00-3:00 p.m., taught participants how to use Blender, a free, open-source 3D animation software used for creating animated films, visual effects, and 3D art. Josh Philips, resident Blender expert, taught everyone about it, from cubes to hexagons to monkeys with crowns and beyond! He also taught 3D animation, which was highly interesting, as many of the participants had seen more than their fair share of animated films and always wondered how they were made. This experience informed participants of the work that goes into animation, and they’ll now hopefully view animated films with a certain amount of reverence.
The course on Unity, a game creation system that uses C# and C++ coding language and works hand in hand with 3D software, went from 3:00-5:00 p.m.. Many games have been made using Unity, including Thomas Was Alone, Temple Run, and Gone Home- among countless others. Frank DiCola, a grad student and former Game Development Club member, taught this masterclass, and guided participants into making a brick-breaker-like game. The students were amazed that such a simple game required so much code.
Finally, from 5:00-7:00, participants learned all about FL Studio, which is a software used to make, edit, and mix digital music. Under freshman Adam Gincel, and Matt Lagarenne, we made basic drum, piano, and orchestral tracks, as well as learned how to mix and edit these tracks. We used effects, automation and other fancy stuff to make some pretty rad sounding music! The students then worked on making chiptune music, which is a genre of 8-bit synthesized electronic music that emerged from the soundtracks of retro video games. Participants were ecstatic to recreate the music of beloved games from our childhood.
LearnJam was an event that married learning and fun in the best way possible. If you’re interested in making games but could not attend the event, the Stevens Game Development Club meets every Tuesday at 9:00 p.m. in Lieb 318.
