Designing Dyeworks
Students launch original videogame
In june, after an intensive, yearlong collaboration, a team of students in TWU’s Game Development Foundations Program launched Dyeworks: A Commerce of Colour, an educational video game they built from concept to completion.
“One of the great things about this game project is not only that we were creating something from nothing, but we were also allowed to experiment, make mistakes, and learn from them,” says fourth-year communications major, Heather Cerny, who was the writing team lead and served on the project’s PR team.“We were able to ask questions and play with ideas. That’s one of the great things about learning in an unorthodox environment; it’s one of the main reasons I wanted to get involved.”
with a growing number of small- to mid-sized media companies creating apps, online videos, and independent games, this program is ideal preparation for small-team new media production.
TWU’s Game Development Foundations Program is designed to simulate a real-life work environment—a multidisciplinary team collaborates on the conception of an original idea, design implementation, composition of original music, artwork production, deployment, and marketing. The student team includes programmers, artists, writers, designers, marketers, musicians, testers, and project managers.
“We planned it over a whole year,” says Kevin Schut, Ph.D., Chair of TWU’s Communications Department. “Before the semester even began, the programmers took a software engineering course, and the designers took directed-study courses to plan the look and feel of the game.”
“we need people to be thoughtful professionals who critically engage in the work they’re involved with.”
Due to the size and nature of the project, many dedicated students continued to work on it even after the last class, to finalize the game and offer it to the public.
With a growing number of small- to mid-sized media companies engaged in creating apps, online videos, and independent games, this program is ideal preparation for small-team new media production. “We need thoughtful professionals who critically engage in the work they’re involved with,” says Schut. 
“This project is a crucial opportunity for students to make that connection before they have a paycheque attached. Presuming that we have the student interest and ability, we want to offer this course again in a few years.”
Dyeworks is an educational game simulating the late 19th century post-Civil War American dye and textile industry. Targeted to students from grades four to eight, Dyeworks puts players in the role of a textiles tycoon, producing and selling dyed fabric. The gameplay is carried by a variety of mini-games within an ongoing game narrative.
Dyeworks is now available to download for free at dyeworksgame.com.
by Jennifer Watton
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