Concordia Game Development Club
Game Dev Community and Creative Design
Concordia Game Development Club is a official club for game development organized by Concordia University students, and established under the Concordia Student Union (also known as CSU). The goal is to encourage students to share their passion and interest in game development, as well as help them engage with the game industry both as a hobby and professionally.
During the pandemic, I was the Club President as well as the Creative Designer from May 2020 to May 2021. My impact was on developing and formalizing a proper structure for the team and its files, projects, plans and schedules. I kept weekly meeting notes for our executive meetings, identifying and delegating actionable steps towards the club's progressive goals.
I designed extensively club assets, including posters, logos, merchandises, etc. I also jumpstarted the Fanzine initiative, being one of the main coordinators and the main designer. Under my direction, the club released 9 monthly issues highlighting recent game news, upcoming industry games as well as art assets and games made by Concordia students.
My Roles and Responsibilities
Club President and Executive
Creative Designer
Secretary
Event Planner
THE TEAM
Rose Dufresne
Leandro Rodriguez
Le Cherng Lee
John Tran
Hengxiao Luan (Fanzine)
George Mavroeidis
Tiffany Chenn
ENGINE AND SOFTWARE USED
Photoshop
Illustrator
InDesign
Github
Google Drive
Discord
ENGINE AND SOFTWARE USED
Photoshop
Illustrator
InDesign
Github
Google Drive
Discord
EXECUTIVE DUTIES
ONE YEAR MANDATE FULL OF OPPORTUNITIES
As an executive of the Concordia Game Development Club, I focused a lot of attention on structuring and establishing a working process by identifying the team's goals, delegating time-sensitive actionable tasks and recording weekly meeting ideas, thoughts and discussions. Other aspects I helped out were sponsorship, community events and designs for different purposes, including our website, Fanzine initiative and game jam promotions.
BACKSTORY
The Concordia Game Development Club used to be an active student club but the previous executives stopped all activities and left the club on hold until some new members took charge again. I came in during their early recruitment stage and became the creative designer for the branding and vision of the club. Later, I was fortunate enough to be voted president amongst a the team of 5 individual after working within the executive team for a few months.
An important aspect of reviving the club was to ensure that we put in a procedure that could be maintained and expanded over time. Arranging our files using Google Drive and managing our socials through Discord was crucial to prevent compromising our productivity for our club activities.
CLUB EVENTS
GAME JAMS, EDUCATIONAL WORKSHOPS, INDUSTRY SPEAKERS AND MORE
I helped in the planning, designing and running of multiple successful online events, including Concordia Makes Games Online!, Cocojam and Montreal Global Game Jam site in collaboration with ETS Conjure, Monthly week (MEEK) jams, etc. I supported in the design of advertising assets such as posters, banners, schedules, merchandises. I coordinated and aided in the tasks in preparations for the events, including writing and contacting sponsors, identifying the game jam theme and modifiers, hosting educational workshops, overseeing game jam members finding teams and resolving issues, etc.
FANZINE
COLLECTIVE INITIATIVE TO HIGHLIGHT INDUSTRY NEWS AND CLUB-RELATED WORK
As the main designer of this initiative, I took charge to ensure that the fanzine was edited, combined and posted on time. I collaborated with Hengxiao (assistant designer) to ensure that the look and feel of the fanzine matched overall the theme of the month. Hyperlinks were provided for easy access to the different articles, projects, games, etc. Small community events were also included, such as making club members vote for the CGD Game Awards or making it a race to see who found the number of pumpkins hidden inside the monthly issue first for a prize. Finally, the Fanzine had insightful call-to-actions such as telling club members to participate in the Global Game Jam, for instance.
