Video Game Development Club at UCI
North America's largest collegiate game development club.
President 2026 – Present · VGDC board since Jan 2024
600+ yearly active members · 44 board members · 13 departments
Overview
Type
Focus
Role
Board
Members
Depts
Term
Tools
Student Organization
3rd Person Action Shooter
President
44 (60+ during turnover0
600+ Yearly Active
13
President 2026 - 2027
Apps Script, Sheets, Figma
Description
The Video Game Development Club is the largest collegiate game dev club in North America, measured on yearly membership and games shipped per year. It reached that position during my presidency.
When I entered presidency, the club had recently undergone big updates, but 30 of 39 board members were graduating, including the entire executive suite. That left me running an organization with a board that was about to be 80% new.
So I focused efforts on documentation, for both longevity and presence: writing down what had only ever lived in people's heads, so the systems outlast any one board. It just about doubled all of our numbers.
What I Built
The output. The problem it was all built against is in Designing for Sustainability, below.
Output
- Increased club funding 106%
- Increased engagement 104%
- Increased overall attendance 57%
- Increased Q1 attendance 71%
- Increased acquisition 25%
All through data-driven leadership.
Data & Tooling
Workshops are one of VGDC's major outputs (we host 8+ a week), and attendance was always tracked, just never used. So I used it. I parsed check-in form data with Apps Script to analyze trends across workshop content, audience, and retention, then scheduled against what the data actually showed. Retention went up sharply.
That tooling grew into 9 input sheets for officer use across departments.
Solid: this year. Dotted: last year. Through Winter Week 7, 2026
Workshop repository
One of 9 officer input sheets
Documentation
I rewrote the club constitution from 26 pages to 51, formally defining club output: 600+ yearly active members, a 40-60 project system, 200+ workshops, and 6 large-scale events. That definition is what secured a 106% funding increase.
I also rebuilt onboarding, applications, interviews, and deliberation documentation across all 13 departments, so a board that turns over every year inherits working systems instead of institutional memory.
Before: 26 pages
After: 51 pages
Branding
The club lacked an image, so I've started and am continuing efforts to solidify one.
- Restructured and recruited a Marketing overhaul into two groups, Publicity and Graphics, led by a Publicity Director and a Graphics Manager, both under the Marketing Director.
- Building a brand guide with the Marketing leads. The goal is for it to be iconic and telling of VGDC, without constricting the creative freedom of the Graphic Designers.
- Commissioned and oversaw a full website rebuild.
- Made digital and print assets: iconography, form headers, and infographics.
Branding
Website Design
Website Stats
Club slide
Brochure
LinkTree
Meetings & Communication
I hold weekly board meetings across 44 officers to analyze output, discuss club-wide issues, and direct operations, on top of weekly Executive Board meetings, sub-admin groups, trainings, and general member 1-on-1s. I also oversee planning 6 large-scale events and 20 general meetings a year, and speak at most of them.
Open to Summer 2027 internships and new-grad gameplay engineering & design roles.
malachykennedy1@gmail.com
github.com/malachek
linkedin.com/in/malachykennedy
Output
- Increased club funding 106%
- Increased engagement 104%
- Increased overall attendance 57%
- Increased Q1 attendance 71%
- Increased acquisition 25%
All through data-driven leadership.
Video Game Development Club at UCI
North America's largest collegiate game development club.
President 2026 – Present · VGDC board since Jan 2024
600+ yearly active members · 44 board members · 13 departments
Overview
Type
Focus
Role
Board
Members
Depts
Term
Tools
Student Organization
3rd Person Action Shooter
President
44 (60+ during turnover0
600+ Yearly Active
13
President 2026 - 2027
Apps Script, Sheets, Figma
Description
The Video Game Development Club is the largest collegiate game dev club in North America, measured on yearly membership and games shipped per year. It reached that position during my presidency.
When I entered presidency, the club had recently undergone big updates, but 30 of 39 board members were graduating, including the entire executive suite. That left me running an organization with a board that was about to be 80% new.
So I focused efforts on documentation, for both longevity and presence: writing down what had only ever lived in people's heads, so the systems outlast any one board. It just about doubled all of our numbers.
What I Built
The output. The problem it was all built against is in Designing for Sustainability, below.
Output
- Increased club funding 106%
- Increased engagement 104%
- Increased overall attendance 57%
- Increased Q1 attendance 71%
- Increased acquisition 25%
All through data-driven leadership.
Data & Tooling
Workshops are one of VGDC's major outputs (we host 8+ a week), and attendance was always tracked, just never used. So I used it. I parsed check-in form data with Apps Script to analyze trends across workshop content, audience, and retention, then scheduled against what the data actually showed. Retention went up sharply.
That tooling grew into 9 input sheets for officer use across departments.
Solid: this year. Dotted: last year. Through Winter Week 7, 2026
Workshop repository
One of 9 officer input sheets
Documentation
I rewrote the club constitution from 26 pages to 51, formally defining club output: 600+ yearly active members, a 40-60 project system, 200+ workshops, and 6 large-scale events. That definition is what secured a 106% funding increase.
I also rebuilt onboarding, applications, interviews, and deliberation documentation across all 13 departments, so a board that turns over every year inherits working systems instead of institutional memory.
Before: 26 pages
After: 51 pages
Branding
The club lacked an image, so I've started and am continuing efforts to solidify one.
- Restructured and recruited a Marketing overhaul into two groups, Publicity and Graphics, led by a Publicity Director and a Graphics Manager, both under the Marketing Director.
- Building a brand guide with the Marketing leads. The goal is for it to be iconic and telling of VGDC, without constricting the creative freedom of the Graphic Designers.
- Commissioned and oversaw a full website rebuild.
- Made digital and print assets: iconography, form headers, and infographics.
Branding
Website Design
Website Stats
Club slide
Brochure
LinkTree
Meetings & Communication
I hold weekly board meetings across 44 officers to analyze output, discuss club-wide issues, and direct operations, on top of weekly Executive Board meetings, sub-admin groups, trainings, and general member 1-on-1s. I also oversee planning 6 large-scale events and 20 general meetings a year, and speak at most of them.
Open to Summer 2027 internships and new-grad gameplay engineering & design roles.
malachykennedy1@gmail.com
github.com/malachek
linkedin.com/in/malachykennedy
Output
- Increased club funding 106%
- Increased engagement 104%
- Increased overall attendance 57%
- Increased Q1 attendance 71%
- Increased acquisition 25%
All through data-driven leadership.
Overview
Type
Focus
Role
Board
Members
Depts
Term
Tools
Student Organization
Video Game Development
President
44 (60+ during turnover0
600+ Yearly Active
13
President 2026 - 2027
Apps Script, Sheets, Figma
Description
The Video Game Development Club is the largest collegiate game dev club in North America, measured on yearly membership and games shipped per year. It reached that position during my presidency.
When I entered presidency, the club had recently undergone big updates, but 30 of 39 board members were graduating, including the entire executive suite. That left me running an organization with a board that was about to be 80% new.
So I focused efforts on documentation, for both longevity and presence: writing down what had only ever lived in people's heads, so the systems outlast any one board. It just about doubled all of our numbers.
What I Built
The output. The problem it was all built against is in Designing for Sustainability, below.
Output
- Increased club funding 106%
- Increased engagement 104%
- Increased overall attendance 57%
- Increased Q1 attendance 71%
- Increased acquisition 25%
All through data-driven leadership.
Data & Tooling
Workshops are one of VGDC's major outputs (we host 8+ a week), and attendance was always tracked, just never used. So I used it. I parsed check-in form data with Apps Script to analyze trends across workshop content, audience, and retention, then scheduled against what the data actually showed. Retention went up sharply.
That tooling grew into 9 input sheets for officer use across departments.
Solid: this year. Dotted: last year. Through Winter Week 7, 2026
Workshop repository
One of 9 officer input sheets
Documentation
I rewrote the club constitution from 26 pages to 51, formally defining club output: 600+ yearly active members, a 40-60 project system, 200+ workshops, and 6 large-scale events. That definition is what secured a 106% funding increase.
I also rebuilt onboarding, applications, interviews, and deliberation documentation across all 13 departments, so a board that turns over every year inherits working systems instead of institutional memory.
Before: 26 pages
After: 51 pages
Branding
The club lacked an image, so I've started and am continuing efforts to solidify one.
- Restructured and recruited a Marketing overhaul into two groups, Publicity and Graphics, led by a Publicity Director and a Graphics Manager, both under the Marketing Director.
- Building a brand guide with the Marketing leads. The goal is for it to be iconic and telling of VGDC, without constricting the creative freedom of the Graphic Designers.
- Commissioned and oversaw a full website rebuild.
- Made digital and print assets: iconography, form headers, and infographics.
Branding
Website Design
Website Stats
Club slide
Brochure
LinkTree
Meetings & Communication
I hold weekly board meetings across 44 officers to analyze output, discuss club-wide issues, and direct operations, on top of weekly Executive Board meetings, sub-admin groups, trainings, and general member 1-on-1s. I also oversee planning 6 large-scale events and 20 general meetings a year, and speak at most of them.
Designing for Sustainability
The problem all of the above was built against.
The problem I inherited: how do you make a club sustainable when it loses 30 of its 39 officers at once?
Clubs run on institutional memory, which means they run on whoever remembers how things were done. That works until those people graduate, and in a university club they always graduate.
When I entered presidency the entire executive suite was leaving, and the incoming board was about to be 80% new.
So I treated it as a systems problem instead of a staffing one. If the knowledge only lives in people, then every graduation is a partial reset. If it lives in documentation, the board can turn over completely and the club keeps its shape.
That's what the constitution rewrite, the 13 departments of onboarding docs, the 9 officer sheets, and the attendance tooling all have in common. None of them are about this year's board. They're about the board after the next one.
Output
2025-2026 stats:
- Increased club funding 106%
- Increased engagement 104%
- Increased overall attendance 57%
- Increased Q1 attendance 71%
- Increased acquisition 25%
There are more stats to come as VGDC enters its first year with a Marketing department. I look forward to it >:)
Open to Summer 2027 internships and new-grad gameplay engineering & design roles.
malachykennedy1@gmail.com
github.com/malachek
linkedin.com/in/malachykennedy