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Babycastles-Academy

Lesson plans, notes from our Babycastles Academy public education programs

Babycastles Academy Manual

Note: The Babycastles Academy Manual is a working document. Please let us know if anything could be improved or made clearer or if you have any other suggestions. Thank you.

Vision:

Babycastles Academy events are weekend afternoon workshops (and sometimes game jams or talks) on topics related to artist-focused game development, world-building and the intersection of art and technology. Workshops can be experienced individually or as a series to learn a broad range of skills and techniques. Our audience is a broad community of creative practitioners from visual artists, musicians, sculptors, programmers, dancers, performers, poets, writers and those who may not self-identity as having any particular relevant skills but are interested in learning.

Rather than the approach of professional game production companies, our focus is game design as an artist creation process akin to the handcrafted process of building zines, paintings, art films and theater. We see game creation as a medium synthesizing visual design, sound, sculpture, programming and performance. Never one to be boxed in by hard definitions, our workshops include topics, skills and techniques that go beyond strictly games. Past workshops include skills in setting goals, workshops in Python, and more. Traditional game-design workshops or classes diverge greatly from this approach, and are pricey, inaccessible to the diverse community we aim to serve.

While we’ve found success as an artist-run space dedicated to games, we’ve always been proud to be representative of a broader community that is not always represented by the Game Industry. Our workshops aim to serve this broad community of individuals of many intersectional identities across gender, race, class, age, ability.

Information

When? Sundays at 3pm!

Where? twitch.tv/babycastles

How long? 1 to 2 hours.

What? Teach a skill! Something that would have an audience at Babycastles. Doesn’t need to be game-related. Examples include: Intro to Making a Flatgame, How to Set Personal Goals, Pixel Scene Design, a tutorial on Unity’s new input system. A playlist of past videos of workshops can be found here.

We use Twitch, which makes for a more casual level of engagement with participants than Zoom for example. But if you have other ideas you’d like to try to implement, chat with us and we’ll work something out.

Alternatively: Lead a jam. Usually you give an introduction, show off a tool and/or concept, then leave time for folks to work on the project and share their results at the end. OR give a talk on an area of research.

Who? Anyone interested in teaching something that would be a good fit for the Babycastles community can participate. If you need help developing your idea or structuring it, we are happy to provide feedback or support.

$? We are happy to give you 70% of the workshop signup income.

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How To Propose a Workshop or Jam?

Attend a Babycastles Academy session to get a sense of how it works.

Join our Discord group. Post in the #babycastles-academy channel. Alternatively, send an email to Babycastles Academy facilitator Lee: lee@babycastles.com

Proposals are reviewed by Babycastles organizers.

To host from Babycastles’ account you need a Twitch stream key. This will let you stream to our account. We will need your twitch stream email.

Hot Tips

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We use OBS to broadcast to Babycastles’ Twitch account.

OBS is free and open source streaming broadcasting software. You can overlay images and your camera and add scrolling text on top of your windows. Do you need to have a discussion, or guests? You can also route Zoom or other conferencing apps into OBS as well.

We are not Khan Academy or Udemy or Lynda. Have fun with it.

Please include:

If you need help, get in touch by posting on the #babycastles-academy discord channel.

All events need:

Babycastles Academy workshop leaders should help promote! Retweet @babycastles on twitter. Post to your instagram, tik tok, etc. Help us get the word out!

Event Descriptions for Facebook/Withfriends:

  1. Start with: Babycastles Academy is the education arm of Babycastles. Join us on Sunday afternoons at 3pm for workshops and jam sessions. Learn new skills. Make new friends.

  2. Then describe that workshop in a few sentences or paragraphs. What are you teaching?

  3. Any previous experience needed? For example: “No previous experience necessary” or “This workshop is open to all skill levels but some previous experience with Unity is helpful.”

  4. Include the workshop leader’s name and twitter / insta / etc handles.

  5. End with: Help keep Babycastles thriving during COVID-19! Participants are encouraged to send a $5 - $15 sliding scale donation. Venmo: @babycastles or make a one-time contribution or sign up for a membership at https://withfriends.co/babycastles

See an example here.

Timeline

2+ weeks before:

1 week before:

1 day before:

Day of:

After Workshop:

Code of Conduct

Babycastles is a community committed to being a safe, respectful and positive environment and will not tolerate any language or behavior that is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, classist, ageist, or otherwise discriminatory.

Additional info on a A safe, respectful, and positive environment and Our Mission can be found on our website About page.

Need Help?

Please post in the #babycastles-academy channel on our Discord server. Babycastles Academy volunteer team currently consists of Lee Tusman, Flan Falacci and Hyacinth Ramsay. Lee Tusman is current facilitator (contact: lee@babycastles.com).

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