Bawaajigewin Aboriginal Community Circle / Bawaajigewin Aboriginal Community Circle | Pixel Art and Game Design with Bitsy

Aaniin from Oshawa, ON! In this round of workshops, we were invited by Bawaajigewin Aboriginal Community Circle – an Indigenous not for profit organization that brings cultural programming, events and workshops to the Durham Region through grant funding. So, we got in the car and made our way down to Oshawa to their centre to deliver Pixel Art and Game Design with Bitsy.

Starting off with the basics, we gave brief lessons on game theory, and going through the primary building blocks of making a game. What might those be? Goals, rules and interactivity. We always need a goal in the game so that the player knows what to do! Rules help the player navigate the world, which can either be made in game, or these rules are constraints of the engine itself. Which, for Bitsy, creates a lot as the engine only uses three colours and can only be made with 8×8 tiles. Finally, interactivity allows the player to immerse themselves in the game’s environment and narrative.

This group was small, but a lot was done in two days! When it comes to defining success, we don’t consider number of participants. What matters is engagement and encouraging the already existing enthusiasm, as this group managed to do a full two-day curriculum within a day! Everyone helped each other and got far ahead in their games – we were excited to be able to show advanced techniques (like building environments with multiple tiles, or complex dialogue options) in such a short period of time.

Bitsy is one of our favorite workshops to teach, as you learn so much about game development in a user-friendly engine. Teaching smaller engines like these helps beginners learn the fundamentals of game development and not be overwhelmed.

Until next time!