Need a game idea for a game programming workshop for young teens
July 3, 2013 3:59 PM Subscribe
I've got 5 three-hour sessions (over a week) to introduce a group of 11-17 year-olds to game development. I need some ideas for a game we could create in this workshop.
In a few weeks, I will be teaching a game development workshop for kids in grades 6-12, so ages 11-17 or thereabouts. (Currently there are no high-schoolers registered, however.) I usually teach college students, so I'm a little out of my element here as to what the kids are into these days. (I suspect most of them would love to do some kind of shooter, but you know what, it's my workshop and I'm not a big fan of violent video games, so we're just not going to do guns. Other weapons might be ok, if they involve skill more than mayhem. But no killing, of people or animals. Abstract kills of alien spaceships and the like are probably ok.)
I'm trying to come with something we could do mostly together, that still leaves some room for individuality. The games I'm used to working with are created over a semester, so they involve a lot more work than we've got time for in this class.
So what I'm hoping you all out there can help me with are:
1) Suggestions for game topics or genres or gameplay that kids ages 11-17 (although probably skewing towards the younger range) would be interested in. I also suspect that most if not all of the students will be boys, if that matters in your suggestions. Pirates? Sports? Superheroes? Puzzle games? Recreate PacMan or Pong with some kind of twist? Are 2D platformers cool or lame with this age group?
2) Suggestions for what technology/language/tool to use for the development. I am able to use almost anything as long as it's free, and obviously, has a short enough learning curve that the younger ones can get something out of the week. (In other words, no staring at Java code all week, although something more visual like Alice is intriguing.) Links to tutorials or other resources would be most appreciated.
I suspect I'll be creating the shell of a game myself, and then we'll fill in the interesting bits over the week, and I'm fine with that. What the kids create in the workshop doesn't have to be from scratch, but it should be meaty enough to make them feel like they've accomplished something.
In a few weeks, I will be teaching a game development workshop for kids in grades 6-12, so ages 11-17 or thereabouts. (Currently there are no high-schoolers registered, however.) I usually teach college students, so I'm a little out of my element here as to what the kids are into these days. (I suspect most of them would love to do some kind of shooter, but you know what, it's my workshop and I'm not a big fan of violent video games, so we're just not going to do guns. Other weapons might be ok, if they involve skill more than mayhem. But no killing, of people or animals. Abstract kills of alien spaceships and the like are probably ok.)
I'm trying to come with something we could do mostly together, that still leaves some room for individuality. The games I'm used to working with are created over a semester, so they involve a lot more work than we've got time for in this class.
So what I'm hoping you all out there can help me with are:
1) Suggestions for game topics or genres or gameplay that kids ages 11-17 (although probably skewing towards the younger range) would be interested in. I also suspect that most if not all of the students will be boys, if that matters in your suggestions. Pirates? Sports? Superheroes? Puzzle games? Recreate PacMan or Pong with some kind of twist? Are 2D platformers cool or lame with this age group?
2) Suggestions for what technology/language/tool to use for the development. I am able to use almost anything as long as it's free, and obviously, has a short enough learning curve that the younger ones can get something out of the week. (In other words, no staring at Java code all week, although something more visual like Alice is intriguing.) Links to tutorials or other resources would be most appreciated.
I suspect I'll be creating the shell of a game myself, and then we'll fill in the interesting bits over the week, and I'm fine with that. What the kids create in the workshop doesn't have to be from scratch, but it should be meaty enough to make them feel like they've accomplished something.
I literally just posted my Gametron 7000 game-building tool-thing over at Projects.MeFI: projects.metafilter.com/4022/Gametron-7000.
I built it to solve a similar problem in the high school game design classes I've been teaching. (It's visual, fast to use, builds simple games, etc. Kids I've used it with seem to get it pretty quickly and have fun with it.)
Here's a direct link: dev.gt7k.com.
Let me know if it proves useful!
posted by chasing at 4:21 PM on July 3, 2013 [1 favorite]
I built it to solve a similar problem in the high school game design classes I've been teaching. (It's visual, fast to use, builds simple games, etc. Kids I've used it with seem to get it pretty quickly and have fun with it.)
Here's a direct link: dev.gt7k.com.
Let me know if it proves useful!
posted by chasing at 4:21 PM on July 3, 2013 [1 favorite]
And to help with your issue #1:
One of the things that I've done to try to stir kids' creativity with game design is to talk about how traditional game mechanics they're used to can be repurposed to mean different things in the game context.
To use a simple example, traditional multiplayer first-person shooters like Call of Duty are really just about pointing a crosshairs on another player and pushing the button before they can do the same. The game could be made into a hide-and-seek kind of experience very easily. Exact same game, different art and metaphor. Multiplayer game. Run around and find people on the other team and click on them before they find and click on you.
There are probably better examples.
But the idea is to get them thinking about how to think of game mechanics not as things that have inherent meaning, but as tools that can be used to communicate different things.
Also: Multiplayer games can be good to have the kids make because they can be simpler, much more exciting and competitive for them to play (if that's what you're after), and it saves them from having to worry about making AIs. Competitive multiplayer games often kind of auto-balance if the players are of roughly the same skill-level.
Last (unrelated) thing: Do you blog or write about your teaching experiences?
posted by chasing at 4:30 PM on July 3, 2013
One of the things that I've done to try to stir kids' creativity with game design is to talk about how traditional game mechanics they're used to can be repurposed to mean different things in the game context.
To use a simple example, traditional multiplayer first-person shooters like Call of Duty are really just about pointing a crosshairs on another player and pushing the button before they can do the same. The game could be made into a hide-and-seek kind of experience very easily. Exact same game, different art and metaphor. Multiplayer game. Run around and find people on the other team and click on them before they find and click on you.
There are probably better examples.
But the idea is to get them thinking about how to think of game mechanics not as things that have inherent meaning, but as tools that can be used to communicate different things.
Also: Multiplayer games can be good to have the kids make because they can be simpler, much more exciting and competitive for them to play (if that's what you're after), and it saves them from having to worry about making AIs. Competitive multiplayer games often kind of auto-balance if the players are of roughly the same skill-level.
Last (unrelated) thing: Do you blog or write about your teaching experiences?
posted by chasing at 4:30 PM on July 3, 2013
Best answer: This is part of what I do for a living!
I usually teach ages younger than your age range, but hopefully you can use some of it. For younger ages, I use Scratch. I've only used the desktop version, their latest version is browser based though if you need that. Here is a pdf called Creative Computing which when you get to Session #9 starts getting into games. There's a Maze game that my students have loved, and you can go much further with adding levels onto it. There's also a 'Collide' game which is fun. 'Pong' comes as an example game which they can recreate or remix. Scratch is a great into for those that have never programmed before.
With older ages, I use the free version of GameMaker. I'm with you in that I don't like to encourage the shooter type games. On their Education page, there are lots of ideas for activities. It also comes with some tutorials. Ones I have used with success are the 'ClickBall' type game, the 'Maze' game and the 'Platform' style game.
By the way, about a year ago I asked this question regarding related activities that don't involve the computer. The students were very into this, and especially liked creating their own board game (you can talk about game mechanics, balance, etc) and the 'remix' games i.e. take the pieces from one game and use the board from another, now come up with the rules!
posted by atlantica at 5:29 PM on July 3, 2013 [1 favorite]
I usually teach ages younger than your age range, but hopefully you can use some of it. For younger ages, I use Scratch. I've only used the desktop version, their latest version is browser based though if you need that. Here is a pdf called Creative Computing which when you get to Session #9 starts getting into games. There's a Maze game that my students have loved, and you can go much further with adding levels onto it. There's also a 'Collide' game which is fun. 'Pong' comes as an example game which they can recreate or remix. Scratch is a great into for those that have never programmed before.
With older ages, I use the free version of GameMaker. I'm with you in that I don't like to encourage the shooter type games. On their Education page, there are lots of ideas for activities. It also comes with some tutorials. Ones I have used with success are the 'ClickBall' type game, the 'Maze' game and the 'Platform' style game.
By the way, about a year ago I asked this question regarding related activities that don't involve the computer. The students were very into this, and especially liked creating their own board game (you can talk about game mechanics, balance, etc) and the 'remix' games i.e. take the pieces from one game and use the board from another, now come up with the rules!
posted by atlantica at 5:29 PM on July 3, 2013 [1 favorite]
Hi. I currently teach game design full-time at an art school in SF. Mostly college kids, but I have some high school kids over this summer. I teach a lot of intro classes.
First, five 3-hour sessions is really very little time. Keep your ambitions low.
Second, it seems like you have a programming background - is your class focused on programming or just game development in general? Unless your students are specifically wanting to learn scripting/coding, I would keep it VERY light on that topic. Scripting can be very confusing for fresh young students.
I come from a design background. The first project I assign to new students is this: create a game environment in Unity that can be navigated with a first person controller. We usually spend about 8 weeks on it, but that includes some pre-production idea development.
Unity is a great program. It's free, intuitive, easy to use and it's actually used by pro devs to make Video Games. The project is a game environment - there's no gameplay - just creating a world that you can walk around with Unity’s prefab first person controller.
The goal of this project is for students to become familiar with working in a 3d engine, dealing with the various elements of a video game, and getting the experience of taking project from concept to final. This project covers: Unity terrain & texture tool, importing and placing 3d models, lighting, particles, animation, physics and basic scripting of triggered events.
There are tons of free 3d models and assets available online and in the Unity asset store, so students can do great on this project with no prior experience, no art skills or anything. There are also tons of Unity tutorials online and very active forums. Feel free to mail me if you want some more info.
posted by gnutron at 7:43 PM on July 3, 2013 [1 favorite]
First, five 3-hour sessions is really very little time. Keep your ambitions low.
Second, it seems like you have a programming background - is your class focused on programming or just game development in general? Unless your students are specifically wanting to learn scripting/coding, I would keep it VERY light on that topic. Scripting can be very confusing for fresh young students.
I come from a design background. The first project I assign to new students is this: create a game environment in Unity that can be navigated with a first person controller. We usually spend about 8 weeks on it, but that includes some pre-production idea development.
Unity is a great program. It's free, intuitive, easy to use and it's actually used by pro devs to make Video Games. The project is a game environment - there's no gameplay - just creating a world that you can walk around with Unity’s prefab first person controller.
The goal of this project is for students to become familiar with working in a 3d engine, dealing with the various elements of a video game, and getting the experience of taking project from concept to final. This project covers: Unity terrain & texture tool, importing and placing 3d models, lighting, particles, animation, physics and basic scripting of triggered events.
There are tons of free 3d models and assets available online and in the Unity asset store, so students can do great on this project with no prior experience, no art skills or anything. There are also tons of Unity tutorials online and very active forums. Feel free to mail me if you want some more info.
posted by gnutron at 7:43 PM on July 3, 2013 [1 favorite]
You could look at AgentCubes. (Sorry, on mobile so can't dig up the link.)
posted by alms at 11:05 PM on July 3, 2013
posted by alms at 11:05 PM on July 3, 2013
Response by poster: So the game camp was last week. I ended up spending 3 1/2 days with GameMaker, and the last day and a half with Alice. I chose GameMaker mostly because it was easy to get something going quickly, and Alice just to introduce some 3D stuff.
They LOVED GameMaker, and were indifferent at best to Alice. I probably should have introduced Alice sooner, so we could spend a little more time with it, or ditched it completely in favor of more GameMaker. Live and learn.
We ended up doing a pretty nice scrolling space shooter, based on a GameMaker scroller tutorial called "1945".
There were 19 kids in the workshop. Next year, I'm going to suggest separating it into two workshops, one for 4th-7th grades, and the other for 8th-12th. The younger kids loved making sprites and goofing around with concepts (flying cheeseburgers instead of planets, for example), while the older kids really wanted to keep adding more features. It was hard to keep both age ranges interested at the same time, as well keep them all on task. Good lord, am I ever glad I only birthed a daughter. Boys are exhausting!!
chasing - I'm going to look further at the project you posted. Also, I don't blog currently, as I have very little time for it, unfortunately.
Thanks to everyone for your suggestions. I'm going to be looking at everything posted in this thread, both for my regular job and for next year's camp.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 5:15 PM on August 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
They LOVED GameMaker, and were indifferent at best to Alice. I probably should have introduced Alice sooner, so we could spend a little more time with it, or ditched it completely in favor of more GameMaker. Live and learn.
We ended up doing a pretty nice scrolling space shooter, based on a GameMaker scroller tutorial called "1945".
There were 19 kids in the workshop. Next year, I'm going to suggest separating it into two workshops, one for 4th-7th grades, and the other for 8th-12th. The younger kids loved making sprites and goofing around with concepts (flying cheeseburgers instead of planets, for example), while the older kids really wanted to keep adding more features. It was hard to keep both age ranges interested at the same time, as well keep them all on task. Good lord, am I ever glad I only birthed a daughter. Boys are exhausting!!
chasing - I'm going to look further at the project you posted. Also, I don't blog currently, as I have very little time for it, unfortunately.
Thanks to everyone for your suggestions. I'm going to be looking at everything posted in this thread, both for my regular job and for next year's camp.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 5:15 PM on August 4, 2013 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Joh at 4:05 PM on July 3, 2013