Game Design at UNC with Industry Professional Evie Wang

Evie (Yanting) Wang, assistant professor of Game Design in the School of Art and Design, is a 3D/2D art generalist, game designer and filmmaker. She currently teaches classes in Game Design, Advanced Image Making and Emerging Technologies from a beginning to an advanced level. Wang’s focus is on giving students real skills that she knows they will need in the competitive job market. There are no prerequisites to take Introduction to Game Design, and upper-level game design courses accept prerequisites in English and Journalism, which opens this trajectory to a wide range of UNC students. Wang aims to foster a culture of collaboration, curiosity and critical thinking in her classes of students with diverse interests. 

 In late October, game design students were designing and testing original board games before committing their concepts to digital versions. They were frank with each other about what doesn’t work in the prototypes—what isn’t balanced, isn’t fair, takes too long and distracts players from the objective. After this period of workshopping, they have better products. This is the first part of Wang’s process for students; they move from studying game theory, gameplay and player mindset to learning to use software platforms like Blender, Substance Painter and Unity. 

She encourages students to build their portfolios and have them ready for prospective employers, whether in the gaming industry or not. Game design skills like quality assurance, graphic design, 3D modelling, concept art making, basic programming and promotion are highly transferable to other kinds of related careers, including UI/UX programming, quality assurance testing and 3D printing.  

Wang is also exposing students to the gaming industry through the Game Developers Conference (GDC), various “game-jam” events and “game expo days.” These give students opportunities to showcase their projects to experts. She often brings in guest speakers to inspire students and advise on projects.  

As a gaming professional herself, Wang is well-connected in the industry. She taught classes during and after her Master of Fine Arts degree at New York University. She’s currently working on the team that created Skadi Tower, a free game for phones/tablets, and as an art director for Camdown, a streaming simulator that has caught the attention of the major game developer of the game Peak. Wang has also worked with the New York Natural History Museum and NYU Create Lab, where she designed learning games for medical students.  

As the Game Design program at UNC grows, Wang and Samuel Dong Saul, assistant professor of Integrated Media Arts and Graphic Design, are coordinating plans with Ludek Drizhal in Music Composition and Socrates Garcia in Music Technology to explore film and game music collaborations. They’re also interested in working with Theatre, Computer Science, Educational Technology and Business students in the future.