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Learner Reviews & Feedback for World Design for Video Games by California Institute of the Arts

4.5
stars
802 ratings

About the Course

Start creating your world. A game world is not just a backdrop for your game—be it minimal or detailed, contained or part of a much bigger universe, it provides the context for your player. Ultimately, a game world should feel alive and wholly unique to any player who will experience it. In this course, we will explore game worlds in existing games and study the art and influences that inform their themes and styles. We will also investigate key components of environment and level design as well as strategies designers use to define gameplay or advance it. We’ll also look at navigation and the elements that make your world as real (or unreal) as you want it to be. A weekly challenge will prompt you to explore styles and inspirations for possible game worlds, and you’ll learn effective ways to communicate your ideas from concepts to presentation-worthy proofs of concept....

Top reviews

SA

Sep 20, 2019

i really loved this course. it inspired me to be more innovative and think out of the box. it changed my mindset a lot. so thanks to my instructor and my peers. your words meant a lot to me.

JK

Sep 10, 2020

This is a fantastic course to run your imagination to it's top! You can built your own game world and show it to other students. The learning curve is definitely improving with this course!

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26 - 50 of 197 Reviews for World Design for Video Games

By Daniel A A G

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Jun 28, 2018

Having to identify what makes other worlds interesting is really helping me focus on what makes my game interesting. I Really do think this course helped me out a lot as I was struggling to land ideas into a concrete explanation. Thanks a lot for the course.

By Andi A

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Oct 2, 2020

I really love the materials of the course. Each week's videos are short but sufficient enough for me to get something out of it. Also each assignments were doable for me, but still gained me a new skill. Thank you very much for team and instructor.

By Andres M

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Dec 1, 2015

Great teacher, great videos, great staff, this course, and CalArts course in general, know how to create great learning content that engages and promotes learning, there is never a second when I'm thinking "man, when is this going to end?".

By Dolapo A

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Oct 16, 2017

This was a fun class. It was really helpful and covered all aspects of game worlds from the appearance to the inhabitants. Theo raised points I'd never thought about which was really helpful. I recommend you give it a shot.

By Quinn W

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Jun 22, 2017

Wonderful course! Not a lot of theoretical information, but many, many great practical ideas to get a great world started.

Thank you so much for your willingness to do this MOOC. What an enlightening experience!

By Sohaila A

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Sep 21, 2019

i really loved this course. it inspired me to be more innovative and think out of the box. it changed my mindset a lot. so thanks to my instructor and my peers. your words meant a lot to me.

By Joon T K

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Sep 11, 2020

This is a fantastic course to run your imagination to it's top! You can built your own game world and show it to other students. The learning curve is definitely improving with this course!

By Xavier E

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Apr 22, 2020

Great course !! It was very inspiring ! I loved every single aspect of it, and Théo is very enthusiastic and we can feel his love about game design and imagining new worlds and universes !

By Ran C

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Jan 23, 2019

I'm not a effective learner so I can't get much from it, but I certainly learn some rules for building world, I would review these contents some days, thank you so much for your teaching!

By Naveen G Q

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Nov 26, 2022

I would like to thank our instructor, Théotime Vaillant, for this course. I am grateful for the knowledge I gained from this course. This course really helped me a lot in my future.

By Rodrigo G d C

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Mar 10, 2016

Great Course, highly recommended, great explanations and nice ideas to help you think diffently about level and world design, concise and clear and has creative exercises. Loved it.

By Tatum T

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Feb 7, 2018

The videos are nice and clear, and I love seeing examples for the homework, it really helped. I also loved reviewing my peers and having them review me, they had awesome ideas!

By W B

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May 8, 2019

This had been a great course, instructor Théotime did a great job in breaking down the process of building a game world and taking it out from a mere concept to written words.

By Jeremy K

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Jun 29, 2016

Fantastic! The coursework and lessons were designed to get you started building the framework for your game world. The course got me started on my new game!

By Aron A

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Oct 18, 2016

Great course! A lot of new and useful stuff. I really enjoyed another part of Game Design: Art and Concepts Specialization. Keep up the great work, guys!

By Ana A

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Dec 16, 2015

Excellent course! I studied animation but I didn't know much of the world aspect for game design. This course it's also helpful for animation field.

By Sofia L

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Oct 11, 2016

I loved this I think video game design and creation is the new way to learn code and complexity of design. Great experience thank you so much!

By Yasmeen Y

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Feb 4, 2024

This was an excellent course and I got a lot out of this one. Even if most of the information was glossed over, it was still quite useful.

By Maria J d C M

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Nov 3, 2022

More ground to cover and harder assignments but all the more learning bc of that :) Example of how to do the assignment v helpful!

By Robert D D

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Dec 10, 2021

I really enjoyed this course, it was a great chance to conceptualize and visualize an entire environment and a visual world!

By Robin W

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Oct 7, 2021

Perfect class! Theo's on the spot with teaching a specific lesson. Very detailed and engaging. Recommend this class! :)

By PAWAN P J

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Dec 8, 2020

Nice and simple, and although I had to drop it temporarily, I could pick it back up without losing speed later on.

By Hawra

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Oct 13, 2020

A great introduction to world design! The assignments were great! I didn't know I'd like visual research so much!

By Yona G

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Nov 29, 2024

very clear and understandable, assignment grading was done swiftly and overall I had a great time learning.

By Alvaro B F

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Aug 30, 2016

A totally great course that makes clear the concepts we should be careful with when developing video games.