Etcetera Edutainment
Production and Design Intern

About Etcetera Edutainment Etcetera Edutainment is a small startup company located in Pittsburgh, PA. They specialize in using 3D videogame technology to develop educational training simulations. My Role Production and game design were my two main roles at Etcetera. I worked on one large project that spanned over the entire summer, and numerous small projects that varied in length from a day to a week. As producer, I managed programmers and artists for projects, attended meetings, and maintained schedules. The majority of my time was spent as a game designer, where one other employee and I wrote a design document for a prototype game and then used an in-house text-based level editor to design several levels. I also sat in on several brainstorming sessions.

What I Learned

• How to design under serious technical constraints
• How to design for different purposes (i.e. serious training, casual, themed entertainment, etc.)
• The process of how a game company functions
• What a game designer is and the role of a game designer at Etcetera
• Refinement of game design, production, technical, and writing skills

Specific Tasks Performed

While I cannot talk about the specific games I worked on this summer due to a non-disclosure agreement, below is a list of tasks I performed this summer while at my internship.

• User Testing
• Evaluation
• Brainstorming
• Background Research
• Writing/Design Document Creation
• Production
• Game Design (both rapid and interative prototyping)
• Level Design
• Game Design
• Meetings and Presentation