Week 5 — Core Game Mechanic

GAME 1303 · Tuesday, September 22, 2026 · 9:00 AM – 1:50 PM

Demo day. Your primary verb, working and tuned, in a build a stranger can pick up. This is also the last week you can change your game without a conversation first.

This week at a glance

Block	Time	What happens
Lecture	9:00 – 10:15	Core Game Mechanic
Critique	10:30 – 11:45	Milestone 2 — Core Game Mechanic — reviewed live
Lab	12:00 – 1:50	Work on your semester project

Before class

Bring a build. A project folder cannot be graded.
Know your tuning numbers and be ready to say why you chose them.
(VR) reserve a headset — you demo in headset, not editor preview.

Lecture topics

Section	Topics
001 — Unity 6.x	Debugging your mechanic · Inspector tuning and serialized fields · ScriptableObjects for tuning data
002 — Unreal 5.8	Debugging your mechanic · Details panel and instance-editable variables · Data Assets for tuning data

Milestone — Core Game Mechanic

5 pts · playable build, demoed live in the exercise block

Full brief: Milestone 2 — Core Game Mechanic

No new exercise is assigned this week. The exercise block becomes live review.

Lab goals

Act on the critique you just received.
Start thinking about your first level — Ex 5 and the Level Map milestone are coming.
Scope checkpoint: if the mechanic isn't there yet, come talk to me today. Cutting now is cheap.

Due this week

What	When	Points
Milestone 2 — Core Game Mechanic	start of class	5 pts

Run the matching tab of the course checklist before you submit. Every box on it is a graded criterion.

Next week

Ex 4 — Juice It. Bring three or four sound effects — freesound.org or jsfxr.