Rad Studio Orientation
Welcome to Rad Studio Online!
Well, kind of 😉 Along with the course content that we covered in Rad Studio Online, we would like to share the 2021 Orientation in order to provide some context. Rad Studio 2021 was a fully online summer program, and the information below was shared with the cohort of emerging game developers during their very first meeting. When creating this orientation, our goal was to capture the heart and soul of the program to get all the students on the same page. You can learn more about Rad Studio and our plans to move its resources online here.
PROGRAM LOGISTICS
Before diving into the meat of the presentation, we started with logistics and introductions.
We introduced the Rad Studio Leadership team — Megan (Program Director and Coach), Dana (Executive Director and Coach), and Willie (Coach) — as well as our Associate Producers Grace and Donovan. Coaches worked with Rad Studio teams to guide and support them through their production process, while Associate Producers assisted with project management.
After checking in to make sure all students were properly onboarded on platforms like Discord, we went over our attendance policy, feedback policy, and program schedule. Expand the items below by clicking on the + for some of the finer details specific to Rad Studio 2021.
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Week 1
1-5pm Monday-Friday
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, we divided the cohort into teams for three game jams. Each day, we formed new teams and gave them two hours to make a game pitch presentation and get to know each other. Through this process, students were able to collaborate in a low-pressure environment and learn a little more about who they would like to work with over the summer.
On Friday, we introduced our Team Selection survey, so students could voice who they would like on their summer-long development team. Rad Studio coaches used this information to form balanced teams, which we announced the following week.
Week 2
1-5pm Monday-Friday
Rad Studio teams are announced!
Teams are tasked with developing a team contract (click here to learn more).
Ideation phase. Teams end the week with a concept that they’re ready to move forward with.
Coaches are paired with teams after the teams choose a game concept so we could be intentional about matching the concepts to each coach’s specific skill set.
Weeks 3-11
Monday: Check in with team coach.
Wednesday: Workshop or guest speaker.
Friday: Discipline-specific meetings with industry mentors. Students met with the other cohort members in their discipline(s) and an industry pro.
The rest of the schedule was up to each team to set together.
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In our 2021 program, we considered three unexcused absences to be voluntary program resignation.
In order for an absence to be “excused,” we emphasized communication with team members and Rad Studio staff. Being courteous and respectful, ideally giving folks a heads up before the absence, is the key to an excused absence.
Illness was always excused — though we asked students to let us know if they were sick as soon as possible.
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At Rad Studio we practice what we preach, and we preach the iterative process. We ask our students to change their designs based on feedback, so in turn, we solicit regular feedback on the program from them.
In 2021, we asked our students for regular feedback through a weekly form, and exit tickets after workshops. We wanted our cohort members to know their voices matter. For instance, if they wanted to start an hour earlier and end an hour later, we gave them the agency to request that kind of change.
SAFETY
One of the most important policies we had in place for Rad Studio — something we include in all Rad Magpie programming — is our Safe Space Policy.
Creating a Safer Space
At this time we introduced our Safe Space Policy and emphasized our dedication to providing a harassment-free event experience for everyone regardless of race, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body shape, size, age, religion, marital status, or veteran status.
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Offensive comments related to any protected personal characteristic
Sexually violent images in public spaces
Deliberate intimidation
Stalking & Following
Photography or recording without permission
Sustained disruption of talks or other events
Inappropriate physical contact
Unwelcome sexual attention
Our Safe Space Policy informs our guests, students, staff and community members that:
If you are asked to stop any harassing behavior, you are expected to comply immediately. This applies to everyone, including event staff and sponsors.
If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, contact a member of event staff immediately.
Content Warnings
As we talked about the ways we can ensure a safer space, we reminded Rad Studio cohort members about the importance of content warnings. We set a ground rule that any person who intended to discuss or present material related to potentially sensitive or offensive topics at Rad Studio is encouraged to provide appropriate notice to attendees prior to engaging in such discussion or presentation.
How do you use content warnings?
Content warnings should be specific and straightforward. Specificity with content warnings allows folks to make informed decisions about which media they will interact with.
In Rad Studio, content warnings could be used in Discord conversations, workshop presentations, at the opening of a game — anywhere someone could be exposed to content that might be triggering.
Use tags like “cw: drugs,” “cw: alcohol,” “cw: portrayal of physical violence,” “cw: portrayal of racism,” etc and adequately spoiler (in Discord) or nest (on other platforms) the content that follows.
Being Kind is Pretty Punk Rock
While Rad Magpie encourages general punk activity, we don’t encourage breaking safety rules. In fact, breaking them isn’t punk at all.
A safe environment means an environment where people can feel comfortable to express themselves and comfortable enough to do their best work.
At Rad Studio, we had an anonymous online form that folks could use to report behavior that broke safety rules.
JUSTICE & RECONCILIATION
As we discussed rules, prohibited behavior, and consequences, we wanted to cover the following concepts to add context to behavioral expectations.
Restorative Justice
Restorative Justice aims to build better relationships and a stronger community by repairing harm, rather than punishing people for bad behavior. It allows everyone involved to find a positive way forward to learn and heal.
Transformative Justice
Transformative Justice goes beyond the classic victim and offender relationship, which restorative justice examines, by analyzing systems of oppression such as racism and classism to contextualize harm.
Cancel Culture
Cancel culture aims to cut someone off from their community as punishment for bad behavior. It does not allow opportunities for growth or repair. It’s the opposite of restorative justice. Even if you want to change, you’re not able to demonstrate that to those who have been harmed.
There’s space for two realities here:
Coming together, in the interest of restorative justice, to reach a unified understanding of why specific actions hurt others so that we might make positive change within ourselves to prevent that harm in the future.
Swiftly removing folks from a community/program in order to maintain health and safety as the highest priority.
We told our students: If you mess up, we will try to work with you to help you understand how your actions have negatively affected others and work with those you have harmed to offer examples of ways that you can rightfully redeem yourself to those you have hurt. And, if you do not show interest nor active progress in righting your wrongs, or if you continue to hurt others in this community, we will remove you from the program in the interest of maintaining a safe environment for those you have harmed.
At this point in the presentation, we established that: if we have reason to believe a student is behaving with malicious intent, we will take another step to ban them from receiving Rad Magpie support or attending any events related to Rad Magpie in the future. Lack of personal growth in the face of adversity = getting kicked the heck out of Rad Studio without a refund.
DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION, AND BELONGING
Rad Magpie is a nonprofit game studio, and we’ve been around since 2018 when we launched our Rad Studio pilot program. Rad Magpie’s mission is to do our part to dismantle patriarchy and white supremacy in game development. We expected all Rad Studio students to be on board with this mission, not just as folks who are receiving Rad Magpie’s support, but as folks who have the strength, compassion, and power to provide similar support to their peers in the future. One of the tools we use in pursuit of our mission is D.E.I. — Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Credit for the content in this section goes to Brené Brown, Akio Bethea, and Anita Sans (see “Further Reading”).
Diversity that Matters
Diversity: The quality of being different or unique at the individual or group level.
Diversity can be found in any characteristic: it can be as simple as a difference in shoe size or alma mater, or as deep as protected identities. When we talk about diversity in Rad Studio we are talking about “diversity that matters” — the kinds of diversity that are used against us to create disparities.
Otherwise, we get into a slippery slope where we start to hear “hey, uh, we have diversity because we have students from a bunch of different colleges in our program!” but that isn’t what we care about here. When we talk about diversity that matters, we are talking primarily about protected classes - race, gender, ethnicity, physical ability, LGBTQ+ community - and diversity in other areas that impact the way you’re treated.
Equity, not Equality
Equity: The pledge of fair treatment, opportunity, and advancement while striving to identify and eliminate barriers.
We asked students to explain this picture to kick off our discussion of equity.
Equality, or giving everyone the same treatment and opportunities, doesn’t account for peoples’ unique needs or systems of oppression. Equity accounts for these needs and addresses the unequal treatment of an oppressive system. Liberation takes this a step further and removes the systemic barrier.
Inclusion = Safety
Inclusion: The act of bringing together and harnessing differences in a way that fosters greater belonging.
Inclusion is also creating a space or environment where people feel comfortable expressing dissent. Where someone can bring their ideas to the table and expect to be heard. Where you get psychological safety: the feeling that you can be your whole, true self.
There’s a big difference between diversity and inclusion: you can have diversity and not inclusion. You can have a collection of multiple people from different backgrounds, but if those people don’t feel included, no one will bring their authentic selves to the conversation.
Belonging
Belonging: A feeling you never forget.
Rather than providing a dictionary definition here, we asked our students to tap into their own personal relationships with “belonging.” We asked them to think of a place where they feel like they really belong — and to share a few words to describe that feeling. A few common themes we came across were safety, feeling seen, relaxation, feeling cared about and respected, and freedom to speak/act without judgment.
BELONGING IS Core to rad studio for three reasons:
We wanted all of our cohort members and staff to feel a sense of belonging in this space.
We wanted our students to think about how to help others feel that they belong. Everyone has agency in whether others feel that they belong — don’t you get a sense of belonging due to the actions of others and how others are treating you? Think about how you can be that person for someone else.
We wanted students to know how a sense of belonging feels, so that in the future they can identify whether a space is safe or not.
RAD STUDIO GUIDEPOSTS
Questions we chewed on during Rad Studio 2021…
How do we foster inclusion and belonging in our spaces?
How do we advocate for ourselves if our needs are not being met?
How do we advocate for others whose needs are not being met?
What kind of work needs to be done around DEI in the video game industry?
What should we expect when we undertake DEI work in the video game industry?
How do we engage with empathy with people whose lived experiences are different than our own?
How do we understand and respect our and another person’s boundaries?
Rad Magpie Guideposts
Social Responsibility & Accountability
Naming what we want to change
Transformative (rather than transactional) Change
Compliance vs. “I feel the importance of this in my body”
Empathetic Leadership
We didn’t expect every student to know what all of these mean just yet; we visited each one of these topics through the Rad Studio curriculum.
Full stop: Rad Studio isn’t just about making a game for your portfolio.
Our cohort members chose the Rad Studio program for a reason: they felt the importance of Rad Magpie’s mission whether they’re an expert in that stuff or not. Because this was a diverse pool, everyone entered with varying levels of commitment to these topics. At this time, Megan and Dana took a moment to reflect on their own commitment to these guideposts and what Rad Studio means to them.
Megan
“I’m personally committed to our guideposts because I’ve seen firsthand the very real harm of lack of intentionality about engaging with other people in digital media workplaces — and I’ve also seen firsthand the harmony that happens when you do things right.
I care a lot about changing stories represented in media because I believe media has as much power to heal as it does to destroy.”
Dana
“If we’re not intentional about our practices, we end up replicating behaviors that might not be helpful — or are actively harmful — just because they go unexamined. We hope that this will help you recognize when people behave that way in your future career.
When you see people being harmful, we want you to know that that’s not good, and we want you to know that so well that when you walk into that room, you either figure out a way to change that dynamic or you turn around and you walk right back out.
I know what it’s like to be in a shitty situation and think ‘this is just how the world works’ — at Rad Studio, we want you to recognize that you don’t have to sit back and accept unhealthy behavior, and we want to equip you with the tools to stop this behavior from continuing.”
After this moment of vulnerability — and a quick break for students to decompress after The Heavy Stuff — we moved on to some icebreakers and games for the rest of the afternoon. Students returned to the online meeting room the following day ready for their first game jam!
PRESENTATION SLIDES
Open the slideshow in Google Docs to view speaker notes!
A video recording of the presentation will be shared here when we have completed our editing process. Don’t worry, you’re not missing any content in the meantime: all of the information has been transcribed into this blog post. However, we intend to share recordings of each presentation for those who would prefer to listen along. Check back soon if you’d like to watch the video.
rules of use
This blog post is based off of a portion of the 2021 Rad Studio Online curriculum. Rad Studio 2021 was a fully online summer program for game development students, and the information above was shared with the cohort of emerging devs during a workshop session. We’re making this information free and available to anyone who’s interested in it. You can learn more about Rad Studio and this initiative here.
Rules of Use:
Feel free to share this information with others! We ask that you cite Rad Magpie (and any relevant linked sources) if you use this for your class / workshop / etc.
If you find this useful and are financially able, consider making a donation to Rad Magpie. We’re a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and rely on the generosity of our community to continue producing resources like this one. Learn more about Rad Magpie here.
FURTHER READING
Making Gaming Spaces Safer - Rad Magpie blog post by Megan McAvoy
Diversity and inclusion aren’t what matter. Belonging is what counts. - blog post by Anita Sans
Aiko Bethea on Inclusivity at Work: The Heart of Hard Conversations - “Dare to Lead” podcast episode by Brené Brown ft. Aiko Bethea
Creative Interventions Toolkit: A Practical Guide to Stop Interpersonal Violence - book by Creative Interventions
This blog was written by Maggie DeCapua.