[Intense Challenge] Become an Indie Developer in 4 Weeks with Your Own RPG Game

Welcome to the intense challenge.

This course is a small, elite challenge that helps complete beginners on their first journey to becoming indie game developers. This challenge is conducted with a small number of participants to provide individual 1-on-1 mentoring.

You will experience everything from C# basics, 2D RPG game creation, to WebGL build and publishing directly on itch.io. Essential theory and practice required for the game development process are systematically conducted.

While learning game development has become easier these days, for beginners, finding direction—that is, knowing what to learn first and how to approach it—is most important. Based on my experience guiding countless students over the past 15 years, from FastCampus offline lectures to Team Sparta online tutoring, I have prepared this intense challenge.

Intense Challenge Goals

• Clearly present the weekly workload to be completed and check progress status

• C# beginner/intermediate/advanced syntax & transition to game development mindset

• From Unity editor basics to Sprite, Tilemap, and UI creation

• Implement RPG character movement, animation, and combat systems using appropriate design patterns

• Sound, story, UI, local and cloud save functionality

• Finally, deploy directly to itch.io and complete a playable build

Direction for growing into a game developer equipped with AI utilization skills

As the capabilities game developers need in the AI era are rapidly changing, I've given a lot of thought to what direction this challenge should
take.

Various AI development tools including ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and others are emerging and evolving every day. In this environment, a more important question than "which AI to use" is as follows.

How can we leverage AI to maximize our fundamentals and capabilities as game developers?

AI immediately generates high-quality, complete code. However,

"Vibe coding" that relies on AI-provided code is ultimately bound to fail.

The Role Developers Need in the AI Era: Supervisor, Not Implementer

To perform this role, the following two things are absolutely necessary.

In other words, the ability to effectively utilize AI is only meaningful when you have the fundamentals. Therefore, the first goal of this challenge is:

"Securing foundational capabilities on your own before relying on AI"

You can only understand the intent of AI-generated code, modify and optimize it as needed, and expand it to fit the direction of your game when you have solid fundamentals.

How is AI utilized in the Intense Challenge?

In this challenge, we don't simply learn "how to ask AI to write code". Instead, we utilize AI in the following ways.

• Code verification using Claude Code

• Design and improvement feedback using ChatGPT

• Review based on SOLID principles and clean code standards

• Learn methodologies for continuously improving code quality

In other words, rather than having AI write code for you, you'll learn how to use AI to improve your own code. Claude Pro subscription (monthly payment of $20) is required.

Intense Challenge Curriculum Introduction

[Week 0: Git & GitHub Usage]

Before diving into the main challenge, you'll first learn how to use Git and GitHub, which are essential skills for any developer. (Optional)

Through the pre-provided Git/GitHub course, you'll understand version control concepts and manage all code used during the challenge directly with Git. You'll also practice how to share and structure code through GitHub.

This challenge doesn't end with simply writing code.

Growing into a developer capable of collaboration through the experience of managing, documenting, and sharing code is one of the important goals. We expect all participants to become comfortable using Git through this course and further grow into developers capable of collaboration. (Free coupon provided)

[Week 1: Building a Solid Foundation in C# Programming]

The core of this challenge is to build a solid foundation in C# programming.

Many introductory courses only focus on boring grammar explanations, but this course is different. You will naturally learn C# syntax while creating your own text-based RPG game and study advanced techniques.

• Starting from basic syntax such as variables, conditional statements, and loops in C#

  
  

• Classes, inheritance, encapsulation, polymorphism and other object-oriented programming (OOP) concepts

  
  

• And even SOLID principles and clean code writing techniques

  
  

You'll learn step-by-step in connection with actual game development. This learning approach is designed to go beyond simply understanding concepts, creating a structure where they naturally repeat and connect when implementing a 2D RPG in Unity.

In other words, the learning process itself is connected to the Unity game development process, structured to maintain a natural flow.

[Week 2: Unity Basics and 2D RPG Project Design]

In Week 2, you will learn the basics of using the Unity engine and proceed with the design phase for creating an actual 2D RPG game.

Game design documents are an essential process regardless of the genre or scale of the game you're creating. Using the provided templates, this is structured to help you develop the ability to design and structure games on your own. Once the design is complete, you'll begin full-scale game development.

Key Learning Content

[Week 3: Combat, Inventory, and Save Features]

In Week 3, we will fully implement the combat system and inventory features, which are the core of RPG games.
Although it involves somewhat complex logic, it is structured so that you can naturally understand it through hands-on practice of step-by-step approaches and efficient structural design methods.

Main Learning Content

[Week 4: Build, Deploy, and Create Portfolio]

In week 4, we will polish (the process of refining to Publishing Quality level) the project we've created so far, then proceed with optimization work for building to WebGL.

Furthermore, beyond simply completing the game, we will proceed with uploading to Github, writing README documentation, and itch.io deployment to enhance its value as a portfolio piece.

Participants who deploy their project to itch.io within the designated period will receive a full project review and improvement feedback.

Key Learning Topics

[Total 4 Live Special Lectures and 1:1 Individual Mentoring]

Weekly special lectures are held every Tuesday evening from 20:00 to 22:00 (2 hours). A total of 4 lectures will cover content not included in the challenge curriculum or areas that need reinforcement through live instruction.
(Optional participation, day and time, and lecture topics are subject to change.)

• The special lecture topics will be finalized on the challenge opening date.

• Recordings will be provided so you can review after the special lecture is completed.

• Weekly 1-on-1 video mentoring sessions will be conducted (30 minutes). Available to applicants only, and the schedule will be announced on the Slack channel.

• Personal mentoring is limited to curriculum-related content only.

  
  

[Extra: Toss App-in-App Launch Guide]

Additional content provides a guide on how to publish your project to the Toss in-app. It offers guidance on what process you can follow to launch to the market after development.

Intense Challenge Process

• Weekly mission assignments and progress sharing

• Progress verification (required) and weekly 1-on-1 Zoom video mentoring (optional)

• Code sharing on Github and code review

• Share Slack channel with students

• Q&A through Slack and Inflearn

• Provide project review after final portfolio upload

• Upon completion of the final mission, discount coupons for all courses I've opened will be provided

  
  

This course is recommended for:

• Those who are determined to complete game development within 4 weeks

• Someone who dreams of being an indie game developer

• Job seekers who need a portfolio

• Those who are starting game development for the first time

  
  

• Those who need a practice-oriented course rather than theory