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

4.4
stars
760 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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101 - 125 of 190 Reviews for World Design for Video Games

By Sarah-Louise H

Mar 26, 2017

Great course!

By Mufizul I

Jan 28, 2017

Great courses

By Umair R

Aug 8, 2016

I m loving it

By Domenico S

Jul 1, 2021

great course

By Antonio B M

Dec 24, 2015

Great course

By Americo E J

Jul 2, 2021

Buen curso

By Rodrigo A Z V

Jun 21, 2021

Me encanto

By Emil E

Sep 25, 2017

Very good.

By JOSE N

Oct 20, 2020

Excellent

By Jahleel K B

Aug 21, 2017

The best!

By Rodrigo V G

Jun 1, 2021

me gusto

By 梁爽

Jan 19, 2018

So nice.

By Andy R

Jan 27, 2017

awsome!!

By Licínio S

Mar 19, 2018

great!

By 受 常

Aug 2, 2017

太棒拉

By V.B.Srevarshan

Oct 9, 2018

My personal area of interest in games has always been game design, level design, character design, story writing and world design. When I found this course, I thought it would involve a lot of art work and 3D modelling. I am not so artistic, but when I started to watch videos and complete assignments, it gave me a lot of confidence. It also motivated me to improve my artwork after I completed the course. I learnt three things - 1) first and foremost describe your world in theory with all the intricate details 2) don't create your game world from void, seek inspiration for art from other games or media 3) proceed with the art work and 3D modelling

By Пётр С

Jul 2, 2019

I like this course and thank Théotime for it. I have eventually got understanding what is the level design and found out root requirements about the location design. Also I understand now the process of creation of the world. It is new for me.

At the same time it was more difficult to go through it (in comparison with two other which I completed before) because of many many questions which Théotime made in video and less answers. Actually full answers are presented only on pages with material for self-education but not in video material. It was difficult trying to gather information from video having so many questions.

By Rodolfo E S

Feb 20, 2016

The course focuses on a number of critical aspects in video game world design, such as artistic direction, spatial and "physical" rules, and movement considerations; and it teaches a few methods of planning them. That said, the presentation of these ideas and methods feels less organized than the others in the course. That said, all of them are useful, and if the exercises/submissions don't quite lead up to as organic a whole as the others, it makes up for it by covering bases with varied approaches.

By Benjamin B H

Mar 3, 2016

Very good and informative course. I liked it mostly because of how it explains the ways one can create the video game world we desire and what must be taken into account. I already had prior knowledge on how to create a video game world that was consistent, but this reinforced what I already knew and took it a bit further. Very recommended for those who are beginners and want to learn how to create a world that feels real and is consistent throughout a game.

By Karin V

Mar 8, 2016

In general the course was really good, I just had the problem that some points weren't as clearly explained as I wished them to be. It's a bit hard to follow up, since sometimes the examples are not what is asked for in the homework and there's nothing to compare your work to, so the student as well as the grading peers are not always sure what is important in the assignment. Add some more examples and explain them directly, I think that would help a lot. :)

By Kim N D R

Jul 12, 2020

I kinda dreaded this course at first since I'm the kind of person who'd rather focus on characters and pretty much avoided trying to solidify the world that they're set in, but towards the end I got more invested. Some of the videos were a little too short and more of like a pep talk rather than containing actual educational content, but most of the videos were still helpful and I did get some things out of them that I didn't know before.

By Taciane M

Sep 11, 2019

This course has nice materials for reading and, although I had some difficulty understanding the instructor's pronunciation, it was effective in really getting me to think about the design of a game world of mine. It was very interesting to develop a map for my world and to structure its elements (besides a quick narrative of how it would begin) for the assignments!

By Farnoud F

Jan 30, 2016

Compare to Last Course in this Specialization this course lacked the good pace through the assignments, they were out of pace or out of tune, and also there were mostly general talks more than tips to make the student get in to the flow and create a better work, All in All it was Great but compared to the course before it, it had issues :D

By Bojan P

Mar 11, 2016

Even though it is a great course by itself, I have to look at it as a part of the whole specialization, and in that context it's just a little bit more abstract and undefined than the previous ones.

All in all, great course and fantastic specialization for now.

By Ethan A

Oct 15, 2019

It is often hard to hear what the lecturer is saying because of his thick accent but his information is very informative and useful. It helped me understand my worlds better. Recommend, but I do say you should look at the subtitles below the video sometimes.