http://pbskids.org/stemchallenge/

How Video Games Get Made

Steps for Designing an Educational Game: How Do You Do It?

1. Brainstorming: Explore and decide on your game idea through "brainstorming." (Think about the game's "story" and what you want to teach.)
2. Creating a Game Plan: Create a game plan or "game spec" that includes the details of your game. (The number of levels, players, rules, etc.)
3. Creating a Storyboard: Storyboard or "wireframe" your game so you can map out how it begins, where you're taking players, and how they finish or quit the game.
4. Designing Elements: Design backgrounds and characters.
5. Building the Game: Build or program the game using the game spec, storyboards, and design elements. (There are lots of programming languages and tools: Scratch, GameStar, Javascript, Actionscript etc.)
6. User Testing: Test the game with the people you designed it for. Watch as they play for common points where they're confused or really excited and engaged.
7. Bug Testing: Test the game for defects or things that are broken and on as many combinations of computers, devices, and browsers as possible. Test like you're trying to break the game and then fix the defects.
8. Launching the Game: Launch the game by publishing it to your website or another portal (app stores or gaming websites).

The Project Team: Who Does What?

1. Producer: A producer brings all the elements of production together and is responsible for enlisting talent (e.g. actors and artists), experts (e.g. educational advisers), and support (e.g. programmers) and putting them to work so that a final product can be realized.
2. Advisor: An advisor brings specific knowledge to the project that you might not have. For example, if you're making a game about healthy eating, you could consider working with a nutritionist.
3. Project Manager: A project manager is responsible for scheduling and creating and tracking the project budget. And, they develop timelines, so that things happen in the right order (you can't record character voices until you've written a script) and so that the project moves forward according to schedule.
4. Developer/Programmer: A developer/programmer creates code for the game using a variety of tools and languages. They are responsible for making sure the game works.
5. Designer: A designer can take on a lot of different roles — storyboarding, illustrating backgrounds and characters, designing buttons and other graphics in the game, etc.
6. Animator: An animator is responsible for bringing the characters in a game to life. They usually need to be skilled in animation programs.
7. Talent: This usually refers to voice actors. It's the person who speaks the scripted lines needed in a game to introduce it, give feedback to players, etc.