Eloy Lasanta is the owner of Third Eye Games and the designer and instructor behind “The Art of Gamecrafting: For Your Classroom, Board Room, or Game Night”.
Hey everyone! I’m Eloy Lasanta, and I’ve been designing games for over 30 years (15 of those being in the professional realm). My very first gaming group instilled in me the importance of being able to build and expand settings, write up crucial artifacts, portray interesting NPCs, and bring all the elements of a game together to deliver an amazing experience for a player. Over the years, I’ve taken on several mentees and tried my best to pass down my love for game design and everything I’ve learned to others. So, when the opportunity to teach a class appeared before me, there was no way I wasn’t going to jump on it.
To give you a little more background, I have pretty much done it all when it comes to games – from layout and art direction to world-building and mechanics design. I’ve developed several game systems for my own game (Dynamic Gaming System, Chakra System, Horizon System, Pip System), and had the honor to help expand on other games, like the Firefly RPG, Vampire: The Masquerade, City of Mists, and Into the Motherlands. Game design is literally my life, and I’m constantly trying to figure out how to gamify everything I witness around me into interesting mechanics and compelling narratives to craft just the right experiences.
The Art of Gamecrafting is essentially Game Design 101, going over all the basics of what it takes to put a game together. It fits designers with a completed game who want to make sure it hits all the fundamentals and wants to learn techniques to make their game really sing. Designers without a game, but just a cool idea, can take the lessons taught and bring their initial concept to an Alpha phase. We go through a lot in 6 weeks, so come ready to innovate and create! (And if you love it, we’ll likely be offering the 201 expansion of this class in 2024, called Intermediate RPG Design).
Main topics covered:
- Presenting your game
- World Building
- Mechanics Design
- Marrying Setting and System
- Crafting Adventures
The skills you learn with me, you’ll be able to bring to other ventures. You could develop your game further for public release or take our discussions and apply them to any type of design, like video games or advertising campaigns. Trust me, you’re going to love the class.
So, sign up today, and I’ll see you starting on October 9, on alternating Mondays and Wednesdays from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. (ET) for 6 weeks. For more information on CMU’s Center for Learning Through Games and Simulations, please visit their website.
