Red Belt: Unreal Engine Game Dev
Game Development in Wellesley
Unreal Engine 5 — the engine real studios ship on.
- Boston Parents Family Favorite seven years running
- Macaroni Kids Favorite 2026
- FIRST LEGO League & VEX Judges Award
- State finalists, FLL & VEX
- STEM.org accredited
- CSTA & NGSS aligned
Not a drop-in coding club. A ten-month program with a cohort, a competition team, and a monthly report that shows you exactly what your child built and why it mattered.
What your child leaves with
A portfolio
Working apps, games, robots and websites they built themselves — not a certificate of attendance. Everything is saved to their own profile.
A team
The route into our VEX and FIRST LEGO League competition teams, with a real season, a capped roster and tournament results.
A transcript
A written report every month explaining what they covered, the concept behind it, and what comes next. A fuller one at the end of each belt.
Red Belt · iCode of Wellesley2026/27 year
Game Development — the Red Belt
- Time
- Two hours a week, same day and time, across the ten-month program
- Group size
- Around six students to one instructor
- Length
- Ten months to complete a belt. Most students go on to the next one. 80 hours of instruction across the year.
- Start dates
- New cohorts in September, November, January and April. Seats are capped.
- Stage
- Typically ages 11 and up
- Entry
- Advanced. After an earlier programming belt.
- Reports
- A written report every month, and a fuller one at the end of each belt — see a real one
- Location
- 73 Central Street, Wellesley
See Red Belt class times
Book a free evaluation
Not sure this is the right belt? The free evaluation exists to answer exactly that — we place by what a student can do, never by age alone.
Most game design classes for young people use a teaching tool. This one uses Unreal Engine 5, which is what Fortnite is built in and what a games studio would hand a new hire. Students work in Blueprints, build levels, light them, score them, and finish with something a stranger can play.
The discipline is the point. A game that is nearly finished is not a game. The final project runs across four sprints precisely so students learn what finishing costs.
What students actually learn
- Unreal Engine 5 — the industry engine, not a simplified stand-in
- Blueprint scripting: logic, state and event handling
- Level design, materials and lighting
- Cinematic sequences, audio and video generation
- Shipping — taking a build from playable to releasable
The year, sprint by sprint
The Red Belt runs in sprints across the school year, each one building on the last and ending in a final project.
- Game Design in Unreal Engine 5
- Blueprint Scripting
- Level Design and Material Editor
- Adding Custom Content
- Cinematic Sequences
- Final Project Phase 1
- Phase 2
- Phase 3
- Phase 4
What they finish with
- A portfolio-ready Unreal Engine 5 game
- A build they can send to anyone
You will know exactly what your child learned
Most parents six weeks into a coding class cannot say what their child has actually learned. A written report arrives every month: the topics covered, the concept behind each one in plain language, what your child actually built, where they found it easy and where they had to push, an instructor’s specific observation, and what is coming next. At the end of the belt there is a longer completion report — the whole ten months as a narrative, the skills portfolio, the capstone, and the natural next step.
The competition team runs alongside it
Our VEX and FIRST LEGO League teams are not a separate Saturday activity. A team place runs parallel to the belt, so the season feeds the same progress record — the robot goes in the portfolio and the season goes on the transcript. Rosters are capped and we hold the cap.
- Entry — FIRST LEGO League Explore · VEX IQ intro. Grades 2–4, About 16 weeks, 1.5 hours a week.
- Core — FIRST LEGO League Challenge · VEX IQ competitive. Grades 4–8, About 20 weeks, two hours a week.
- Advanced — VEX V5. Grades 8–12, About 20 weeks, two hours a week, eight students to one coach.
A place is conditional on being an enrolled student, and tryouts run in September. See the teams, rosters and season dates.
The question parents actually ask
“My child just wants to play games. Is this indulging that?”
It tends to cure it, in our experience. Building in Unreal is slow, technical and full of things that do not work the first time. Students who arrive wanting to play games either discover they enjoy the making more than the playing, or they find out early that they do not — and both are useful answers to have.
If it is not working
Four sessions — about a month — then decide.
If your child is not engaged after four sessions, tell us and we refund the balance and release the seat.
How this differs from a club
A club is one hour a week for ten weeks, in a larger group, on a single topic — a good way to start and a good second activity. The Belt Program is two hours a week across a ten-month year, in a group of about six, with a written progress report every month and a capstone project. It is the deeper commitment and the one most families end up in. See the clubs if you would rather start smaller.
If two hours a week is too much right now
Studio — One hour a week, ongoing. A flexible, AI-driven path with its own milestones, supervised by an instructor. The on-ramp for families who cannot give us two hours a week yet. Students move across to a belt when they are ready. It is a different product rather than a shorter belt, which is what keeps the belt itself meaning the same thing for every student who finishes one.
Questions
Do we need a powerful computer at home?
No. Unreal is demanding, which is exactly why the work happens on our machines in the center.
Is this coding or art?
Both, and students self-select toward one. Blueprints are genuine programming logic; level design and materials are genuine visual craft. The final project needs the two to meet.
What comes after this?
The Blue and Black Belts move toward systems and software engineering. Students who want to stay in games usually go deeper into Unreal on their own with our instructors pointing the way.
Where you’ll be
iCode of Wellesley · 73 Central Street, Wellesley, MA 02482
781-291-3131
Five minutes from Wellesley Middle School and a short drive from Schofield, Bates, Hardy, Hunnewell and Upham. Street parking on Central Street, plus the Municipal Way lot behind the building for pickup.
Ready to start?
Book a free evaluation and we will tell you honestly which belt your child belongs in — or go straight to the Red Belt class times.
Book a free evaluation
See Red Belt class times
The ten belts, in order
Students move up the ladder as they are ready, not on a timetable. Most join partway up — the free evaluation is how we work out where.
- Junior Belt — Junior STEAM
- Foundation Belt — Scratch Coding & AI Foundations
- White Belt — Robotics, VEX & 3D Printing
- Gray Belt — Minecraft & Roblox Coding
- Orange Belt — Web Development & Design
- Yellow Belt — Mobile App Development
- Green Belt — Python, Drones & AI
- Red Belt — Game Development — you are here
- Blue Belt — Networking & Cybersecurity
- Black Belt — Java & AP Computer Science
