Resources are designed around the New Zealand curriculum and NCEA Units and can be used by teachers to award credits that can go towards student education but they can also be used as a lesson plan for teachers in other countries.
We also have a bunch of fun and helpful tutorial resources that you can use to guide your students through using Gamefroot to make games.
Level 1 Units
Unit: Game to Think – Design a Gamefroot arcade game!
Where do video game ideas come from? Your standard-issue human brain…where else? The Game to Think unit will take your Year 11 Media Studies students through the basics of designing a platform or top-down video game. Using the same principles applied by professional game developers, your students will create a game concept and forge the characters, worlds and stories that can later be forged into reality via Gamefroot.com.
Achievement Standard Media Studies 90993: Produce a design and plan for a developed media product using a range of conventions
NCEA Credits: 3 (Level 1)
Extract from the Marking Schedule
An adequate design and plan is expected to include a concept, treatment and pre-production activities that includes design choices that meet the requirements of the given brief:
- 2-4 minutes of gameplay
- target audience of teenagers and their parents from the local school community
- purpose of providing entertainment.
> Teachers Download Gamefroot NCEA UNIT – Game to Think
Unit: Made to Play – Create a Gamefroot arcade game!
How do you get to become professional game developer? Easy. You make games and keep making them until someone pays you to do it. Here’s where your Year 11 Media Studies students can begin their journey with their first, prototype video game. Within the powerful simplicity of Gamefroot, students will forge their game concepts into working, playable platform or top-down arcade games that can be shared with the world through the Gamefroot’s publishing platform. Never before in the history of game development have the tools for making games been so accessible to so many.
Achievement Standard Media Studies 90994: Complete a developed media product from a design and plan using a range of conventions
NCEA Credits: 6 (Level 1)
Extract from the Marking Schedule (Excellence)
The student completes a developed media product using a range of conventions, from a design and plan. This means finishing a Gamefroot game that contains at least two to four minutes of gameplay which:
- reflects the intention of the design and plan by appropriately adapting the details.
- uses conventions of platform and top-down video games to create a coherent and effective product
- shows consistent control of production technology
- is effective, appeals to and/or has impact on its target audience, which includes capturing and holding the attention of the audience.
> Teachers Download Gamefroot NCEA UNIT – Made to Play
Level 2 Units
Unit: Game On – Design a Gamefroot arcade game!
Where do video game ideas come from? Here! Game On unit will take your Year 12 Media Studies students through the nuts and bolts of video game design. Using the same principles followed by professional game developers, the students will create a game concept and forge the characters, worlds and stories that could later become the heart and soul of their very own Gamefroot arcade game.
Achievement Standard Media Studies 91252: Produce a design and plan for a developed media product using a range of conventions
NCEA Credits: 4 (Level 2)
Extract from the Marking Schedule
The student produces a design and plan for a developed media product, using a range of conventions. This means that in completing this assessment activity, the student:
- completes a game development plan for a Gamefroot video game
- includes design choices that meet the requirements of the given brief:
- — 6-10 minutes of gameplay
Design is a detailed description of how the concept is to be realised in Gamefroot. For example, this may include considered discussion of:
- narrative
- genre
- characterisation, setting, mood
- specific conventions to be used
- game mechanics
- technical elements such as art, sound and SFX.
Plan includes but is not limited to:
- concept summary
- character profile
- world building document
- game critique articles
- milestone dates and resources required to complete pre-production activities
> Teachers Download Gamefroot NCEA UNIT – Game On
Unit: Game to Try – Create a Gamefroot arcade game!
How do you get to be a game developer? Easy. You make games and keep making them until someone pays you to do it. Here’s where your Year 12 Media Studies students can begin their journey with their first, prototype game. Within the powerful simplicity of Gamefroot, students will forge their game concepts into working, playable arcade games that can be share with the world through the Gamefroot’s publishing platform. Never before has game development been so accessible to so many.
Achievement Standard Media Studies 91253: Complete a developed media product from a design and plan using a range of conventions
NCEA Credits: 6 (Level 2)
Extract from the Marking Schedule
The student completes a developed media product using a range of conventions, from a design and plan. This means finishing a Gamefroot game that contains at least six to ten minutes of gameplay which:
- accurately reflects the details of the design and plan
- incorporates key components of video games to create a coherent and effective product that has a clear, sustained focus
- shows consistent, precise control of production technology
- is effective, appeals to and/or has impact on its target audience, which includes capturing and holding the attention of the audience.
> Teachers Download Gamefroot NCEA UNIT Game On – Game To Try
Level 3 Units
Unit: Media Studies 3.5 – Game Plan
Coming up with game ideas is easy. Turning them into ideas that will actually work…that’s the challenge! In this Year 13 Media Studies design unit, your students will develop goodies and baddies, plan levels and whole worlds, design animations and everything from weapons to healthy snacks, buildings to booby traps. It’s all about turning their ‘big idea’ into a cohesive collection of details that they can later be convert into their very own Gamefroot video game!
Achievement Standard Media Studies 91494: Produce a design for a media product that meets the requirements of a brief
NCEA Credits: 4 (Level 3)
> Teachers Download Gamefroot NCEA UNIT – Game Plan
Unit: Media Studies 3.6 – What’s your Game?
There’s only one trick that’s guaranteed to get you into the Games Industry. Make good games! In this Year 13 Media Studies production unit, your students will use the comprehesive Gamefroot toolkit to create a video game that they can release to the world via the Gamefroot community platform. Fly my pretties, fly!
Achievement Standard Media Studies 91495: Produce a media product to meet the requirements of a brief
NCEA Credits: 6 (Level 3)