Overview

The UCLA Game Lab Summer Institute introduces high school students to game-making as a form of artistic practice, teaching them the techniques and tools that will help them develop analog and digital games that reflect their own creative voice and vision. No previous game-making skills are required, but students with an interest in games and in the visual arts in particular will find the curriculum especially stimulating and rewarding.

Students in the program develop a solid aesthetic and technical foundation in various aspects of game design--but just as importantly, they begin learning how to express their own, personal ideas through game-making and game projects.

 

Classes

Taught by alumni of the internationally renowned UCLA Game Lab, the two-week program leads students through four, hands-on courses in game development. These workflow-oriented classes focus on:

  • Game Design : Learning the fundamentals of game design
  • Chracter Animation : Creating compelling game characters
  • Worldbuilding : Building game worlds
  • Game Programming : Programming games
By the end of the two weeks, students will have created complete games or game assets in each of the four classes. This work is exhibited on the last day of the program in a gallery-like installation at UCLA, and students leave the program with game art they can include in their college-application portfolios.

Game Design

Taught by Kit Kirby

About the course

This section focuses on the fundamentals of game design for tabletop game forms. Through in-lab instruction, students will learn the essential elements of making compelling games, such as meaningful player choice, multiplayer dynamics, chance, and rule design. The final project will be a board or card game built around a personal experience or point of view.

 

About the instructor

Kit Kirby is an artist and game maker based in Los Angeles. Her work uses game tools and engines, both analog and digital, to talk about game culture. She has a BFA in Graphic Design from Boston University, a Post Baccalaureate in Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and an MFA in Design Media Arts from UCLA.
4est
The Asylum
Castle Wars
Chicken You Are Too Beautiful
Cursed Forest
Epic X
Error_404
Greed
Harold's Drippy Dungeon
Hospital Hooligans
Junk
Kill the King
The Adventures of Guido
The IKA Chronicles_ Quest for the Infinite Meatball
The Taco
The Tubular Temple of Turbulent Trust
Wannabe Drop Out

Character Animation

Taught by Nick Crockett

About the course

Games give us avatars to control; this section provides an introduction in how to create playable characters through 3D modeling and animation. Students will use Maya, a state-of-the-art 3D modeling and animation application, to learn essential 3D skills like rigging, weight painting, UV mapping, modeling, and animation.

 

About the instructor

Nick Crockett makes computer games and experimental animation. He recently completed Fire Underground, a feature length fantasy animation which reinterprets the history and prehistory of coal. The project features cursed treasures, awkward touching, software that relies on people behind curtains, and hardware that runs on masking tape and hope. Nick holds a BA in Design | Media Art from UCLA, is an alum of the UCLA Game Lab, and recently completed an MFA at the Carnegie Mellon School of Art.

World Building

Taught by Miles Peyton

About the course

Videogames rely on worldbuilding to give game environments narrative potential and playful motivation. In this section, students will create a game environment in the Unity3D game engine and fill it with environmental elements such as buildings, plants, terrain, and lighting. The end result will be a navigable environment that expresses the creative decisions of each student.

 

About the instructor

Miles Peyton is an artist based in Los Angeles, USA. His practice is concerned with the subjectivity of nonhuman beings, and recent works juxtapose layers of organic detritus with computer-generated imagery.
Adam Belhedi
Aditya Tyagi
Andre Lebecki
Ari Maman
Arman Chinai
Asher Forman
Avery Knowlton
Benjy Robinson-Rosendorff
Boyu Huang
Brendan Kraft
Brenna Lutzky
Cole Whitten
Colin Wong
Daniel Woo
Eason Zhao
Elias Laranas
Ellie Chang
Emma Subin
Eva Luo
Felix Berliner
Gabriel Hanks
Gavin Seiden
Gina Chan
Gladeline Rufo
Hobie Vogel
Jack DiLorenzo
Jack Lin
Jackson Whitt
Jason Chen
Jindi Li
Jinshi He
Jonathan Tjahjadi
Joshua Chabria
Joshua Wright
Leon Zhou
Liam Tucker
Marco Li
Meliti Zadeli
Mia Hellman
Mia Nadel
Micha Mattheussen
Micha Sevenhuysen
Nicholas Forman
Pierce Keing
Rebecca Gaul
Riya Pallikala
Ryan Brunswick
Sean Chiu
Shaunik Vaid
Sunskar Dhanker
Tobias Chapman
Tyler Knowlton
Wenjie Zhang
Wing Wat
Zac Nakamura
Zacharias Johnson
Zihao Chen

Game Programming

Taught by Alex Rickett

About the course

The last section guides students through the process of creating a playable game for a mobile device. Using p5.js, students will build a videogame, playtest the results, and make refinements as part of an iterative design process. Students will engage with specific coding exercises, which will introduce them to the fundamentals of programming for games.

 

About the instructor

Alex Rickett is an artist, coder, and game designer. Alex’s projects include an online networked game with barfing lizards, a VR live-theater, time-manipulation game with the studio Tender Claws, a robot made of socks, and an IRL game with a fake-bloody seesaw where players have to drink brutally spicy habanero water. Alex holds a BSc in computer science from the University of Washington, an MSc in computer science from UCLA, and an MFA in Media Art also from UCLA.
Adam Belhedi
Aditya Tyagi
Andre Lebecki
Ari Maman
Arman Chinai
Avery Knowlton
Bill He
Brendan Kraft
Brenna Lutsky
Cole Whitten
Colin Wong
Daniel Woo
Elki Laranas
Ellie Chang
Emma Subin
Eva Luo
Felix Berliner
Forman Asher
Gabriel Hanks
Gavin Seiden
Gina Chan
Gladeline Rufo
Henry Petrie
Hobie Vogel
Jack DiLorenzo
Jackson Whitt
Jiaguo Lin
Jindi Li
Jonathan Tjahjadi
Josh Chabria
Joshua Wright
Liam Tucker
Marco Li
Meliti Zadeli
Mia Hellman
Mia Nadel
Micha Sevenhuysen
Mischa Matheussens
Nichola Forman
Oliver Goslin
Rebecca Gaul
Riya Pallikala
Ryan Brunswick
Sean Chiu
Shaunik Vaid
Sunskar Dhanker
TobiasChapman
Wenjie Zhang
Wing Wat
YiLin Zhao
Zac Nakamura
Zach Johnson
Ziang Zhou
Zihao Chen