Day 1
Get Into the Game
Your warm-up. Play Deadline Run, change one thing in it, and test what happened.
Game Lab Academy · Six-week guided course
Build a learning game you can show. Learn a process you can repeat.
Start with How to Make a Star. No Academy account needed. You'll need a paid Claude plan to follow along.
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A six-week guided course for instructional designers. Build and publish your own playable learning game with Claude, with a coaching appointment each week.
Free intro to Claude Code
Try the first lesson free: How to Make a Star.
This is where Week 1 starts. You make a tiny glowing game by typing wishes to Claude, in the Code tab of the Claude desktop app. No experience needed, and you don't need an Academy account to open it. It takes about an hour.
Open How to Make a Star ↗The lesson is free to open. To follow along, you need the Claude desktop app with a paid Claude plan (Pro is enough). That plan is separate from Academy tuition.
Real workshop gameplay. The replay is a free workshop, separate from Academy coaching.
Watch before you decide
See how Rachel teaches.
In this public, 90-minute workshop replay, Rachel walks through a working learning game and the build process. It lets you see her teaching style and the kind of project you will examine in the Academy. It is evidence of the workshop, not a claim about Academy graduate results.
Watch the free workshop replay ↗The work
Your own game.
Every week.
You play one warm-up game in Week 1. From Week 2 you build your own game with Claude, and every week after that makes it better.
Week 1 warm-up
Deadline Run
Play a short office game, see how it works, and change one thing in it. It's where you learn to change a working game with Claude.
A playable capstone and a case study that explains it.
Choose a real audience and learning problem. In week two you build your own game with Claude, and you can make it your capstone. Then you observe players, revise it, publish a link, and document your design choices. Rather finish a different web game? That works too. Bring it to a coaching call, and we check its scope together.
Your Academy
Your course lives at camp.
Camp is where your lessons, your coaching prep and your projects live. The first time you arrive, it's night. Make your first wish at the telescope, and the sun comes up.
How the six weeks work
Make progress with one-on-one coaching.
The course has guided lessons, a build milestone each week, and six 30-minute coaching appointments with Rachel, one per course week. Bring the decision, design question, or bug that matters to your project. There is no required group class or fixed class time.
EMMA is the repeatable working method: Explore, Model, Modify, Actualize. You use it to inspect what exists, plan a change, make it, and check the result.
StartWeek 1 begins the day you join. Each new week opens seven days after the last, so Week 6 begins five weeks after you start.
BookAfter enrollment, use your booking link to choose from available times each week. Appointments are on Google Meet.
TimesWeekday mornings at 8:00 AM ET, weekday evenings from 5:00 to 8:00 PM ET, and weekends from 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM ET. Your booking page shows your time zone; availability changes as times fill.
SupportCoaching helps you do the work. It is not a done-for-you build or an unlimited message service between calls.
A clear path
Six weeks from first change to public link.
Each week has a guided practice. From week two, it moves your own game forward. Your weeks count from the day you join. They mark course weeks, not group meeting times.
Day 1
Day 8
Make It Yours
Define your audience and learning goal, then build your own game with Claude. It can become your capstone.
Day 15
Build the Gameplay
Turn real mistakes from your job into your game's cases, make its feedback teach, and test it with a real player.
Day 22
Bring It to Life
Improve visual clarity and feedback, compare a before and after, and observe a player.
Day 29
Make It Teach
Make your game teach with choices that tempt, calls that carry forward, and an ending that sticks.
Days 36–42
Fix It. Ship It. Show It.
Test and revise your capstone, publish its playable link, and write the case study.
Who this is for
You can start before you know how to code.
You should be comfortable giving feedback on learning work and willing to test what an AI coding agent produces. Bring a real topic or learning problem by week two. The Academy is new, so the workshop replay shows Rachel's teaching, not a previous Academy class.
Check your setup before enrolling
- A Windows or Mac computer where you can install tools. A locked-down work computer may not suit the course.
- Access to an AI coding tool. Claude Code is the teaching path. Any required tool subscription is separate from tuition unless your own plan or organization provides access.
- Chrome for matching the game demonstrations.
- Your game may need a free tool or two. Claude installs them and tells you what each one is. Windows may ask you to click Yes.
Before you enroll
Questions worth answering.
Is this an AI course?
Yes. It's a learning-game course, and AI is how you build it. You use Claude Code, Anthropic's AI tool, to build your own playable learning game. You describe what you want in plain words. Claude builds it. Then you test what it made. You don't need to know how to code first, but you do need a paid Claude plan (Pro is enough). It costs extra, on top of the $500 tuition. If you'd like to see how it feels before you enroll, you can start with Rachel's free first lesson. It needs that same paid Claude plan.
Do I need a project idea already?
No. In Week 1 you play and change one warm-up game. In Week 2 you choose an audience and learning problem, and build your own game with Claude. You can make that game your capstone. A different web game works too. Bring it to a coaching call, and we check its scope together.
Are the calls a group class?
No. You work through guided material and book one 30-minute appointment in each of the six course weeks. There is no required group meeting, and coaching-call recordings are not part of the offer.
What if I need to move a coaching appointment?
Give at least 24 hours' notice and choose another available time in the same course week. One courtesy rebooking is available during the course for a late cancellation or missed call, subject to availability. After that, a late cancellation or missed call uses that week's appointment. If Rachel cancels, she reschedules it without using your courtesy. Earlier unused appointments do not accumulate. A week-six appointment can move up to seven days after the course ends by advance agreement.
Are all lesson videos ready?
Game examples, short introductions, and written setup and editing guides are available. Additional task recordings are still being completed. Your six one-on-one coaching appointments are part of the course offer.
Course tuition
Build your game with guidance each week.
Six guided weeks, your own game, a capstone and case study, and six 30-minute coaching appointments.
- Join anytime: your six weeks start the day you join
- Each new week opens seven days after the last
- Enrollment is open now
Unsure whether your idea fits?
Tell Rachel what you want to build. She will reply personally about whether the six weeks fit your project.
Reserve your place
$500
One payment
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Talk to Rachel first · free 20-minute fit call ↗EnrollmentOpen now. Join anytime.
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Make the learning game you wish you could show.
Start with a working game. Then build your own, test it, and publish it with personal guidance each week.
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