10-week online course Online, worldwide · live cohort
Artiframe is a small, mentored studio program for career-switchers and self-taught juniors. Ten weeks of live workshops, weekly build assignments, and honest 1:1 feedback — ending in a portfolio a hiring lead will actually read.
Why this course exists
Most people learn game design by reading about it. That's backwards. You learn it by shipping small, broken things and watching real players bounce off them — then fixing what you saw.
So every week you build a playable slice, put it in front of testers, and defend your choices in a live crit. No lectures you passively watch; no six-month "capstone" you never finish. Ten deliverables, ten rounds of feedback, one portfolio at the end.
The ten weeks
Each week has one focus, one build, and one thing you'll be able to explain in an interview. No filler weeks, no theory for its own sake.
Verbs, goals, feedback. You'll take a game you love apart and rebuild its smallest satisfying moment on paper.
Design a loop players want to repeat, then measure whether they actually do. Intro to the tester's notebook.
Why a jump feels good or dead. Tuning input, response and juice on a movement prototype.
Resources, costs and trade-offs. Balance a small economy so no single choice dominates.
Teach players through space and sequence instead of text pop-ups. Block out and playtest one level.
Where players quit and why. Rework an opening so a stranger reaches the fun without help.
Run a moderated test, take notes that aren't opinions, and turn observations into a prioritized fix list.
Write a pitch a producer can green-light and a doc a teammate can build from. Clear over clever.
Pull your strongest idea into a short, polished, defensible slice — the centerpiece of your portfolio.
Package your ten weeks into a portfolio and present it to mentors and invited working designers.
How a week runs
Roughly eight to ten hours a week. Live sessions are recorded, so a missed evening isn't a missed week.
A 90-minute session on the week's focus: worked examples, a teardown, and the brief for your build. Ask questions in the room.
You make the thing. Prototyping tools are your choice; we help you pick ones that don't get in the way. Office hours are open if you're stuck.
Put your build in front of testers from inside the cohort. Watch where they get confused. Write down what you saw, not what you hoped.
A private mentor review of your work, plus a small-group crit. You leave with a short, specific list of what to change next.
Who reviews your work
You get the same person all ten weeks — no rotating pool, no anonymous graders. They've made games, cut features, and lived with the results.
Lead mentor
Systems & economy design
Fifteen years across two Riga studios, most of them balancing free-to-play economies until they were fair enough to be fun. Marta teaches the systems weeks and runs the Friday crits. Her rule: if you can't explain a number, cut it.
Craft mentor
Level design & game feel
Shipped three platformers and one that quietly flopped — which, he says, taught him more than the others combined. Kaspars leads the level and onboarding weeks and reviews every movement prototype frame by frame.
From past cohorts
Real builds from graduates — the kind of concrete, defensible work that gets a junior a call back.
A tide-based puzzle loop built in week two, tuned for three weeks until first-time testers stopped asking what to do.
A greybox level that teaches its one mechanic through space alone — no tutorial text anywhere in the build.
A visual and verb study for a magnet-platformer, pinned down before a single line of code was written.
A ten-page pitch and one-sheet for a farming-economy game — clear enough that a mentor could have built from it.
What you walk away with
Two ways to take it
Same ten weeks, same live workshops. The difference is how much private, one-to-one attention your work gets. All prices in US dollars. You pay after we confirm your seat — nothing due today.
Early-bird, then $890 · one 10-week cohort
Everything in Craft, plus a dedicated mentor track
| What's included | Game Design Craft | Craft + Mentor Track |
|---|---|---|
| Live workshops (10) | Yes | Yes |
| Weekly build assignments | Yes | Yes |
| Small-group critiques | Yes | Yes |
| 1:1 mentor reviews | One per week | Two per week |
| Vertical-slice line review | — | Yes |
| Mock portfolio interview | — | Yes |
| Follow-up after the course | Alumni list | 3 months, 1:1 |
| Price (USD) | $790 early-bird / $890 | $1,230 |
Field notes
Three pieces we wrote from the actual curriculum — the same way of thinking you'd get inside the cohort.
How to design a game players repeat for hours — the loop underneath almost every game that keeps you up too late.
Read the note → Note 02Teaching players without a tutorial — using space, sequence and consequence instead of pop-up text.
Read the note → Note 03How to build a game design portfolio that actually gets you hired — what to show, what to cut, and why.
Read the note →Before you enroll
No. You'll build playable prototypes, but you can do that with paper, board-game pieces, spreadsheets or no-code tools before you touch an engine. If you already code, great — bring it. If you don't, we'll help you pick tools that stay out of your way.
Plan for eight to ten hours: about ninety minutes live on Monday, the rest spent building and testing on your own schedule. Sessions are recorded, so a busy evening doesn't cost you the week.
It's aimed at career-switchers, serious hobbyists and self-taught juniors who want structure and honest feedback. If you've shipped commercial games for years, this will feel basic — it's a foundation course, not a masterclass.
Ten critiqued builds, one polished vertical slice, a pitch and design document, and a portfolio you present in week ten to mentors and invited working designers. Concrete artefacts, not a certificate.
Enrolling here just reserves your seat. Once we confirm you fit the cohort, we send payment options by email. We never collect card details through this site.
Tell us before the cohort starts and we refund you in full; after it begins we'll usually move you to a later cohort. The full terms are in our Refund Policy.
Reserve a seat
Eighteen seats, first come first matched. Fill this in and we'll email you within two working days to confirm your place and send payment options. Nothing to pay right now.
