8 things I emphasize in game design lessons

I love games, I make games of various types and I work with educational technology in a middle school.  This means I often have very excited students (usually boys) telling me their dreams of making computer games.  

On one hand I love their passion and I try to encourage them.  I have used it at times to motivate some otherwise very unmotivated students.

At the same time, I am wary of presenting a false picture of what it takes to make a successful (or even a good) game.  "Making it" with games (like any creative venture) can be frustrating.  I don't take it lightly when dealing with their hopes and dreams along with the very real possibility of failure.

I don't always have the chance to teach the class or guide all the aspects of the game design lessons when I'm supporting the classroom teacher.  Sometimes I do, sometimes I'm just in the room and working with the students.  From my experience as a game designer and my time with these students, though, here are the top 8 things I always emphasize in game design lessons.

1)  Don't think about money.  Don't even think you could live off any game you make.  Whether a card game, board game or computer game, you'll most likely invest hours of time and make no money at all.  Most people who make games do not make enough to live off them.  That's reality.

I've made a couple party games that have sold all over the world and I made very little money at it.  Most of my friends who have made games, some a lot more successful than mine, still keep their day jobs.  I make it a personal goal to never talk about the money.

2)  Approach it as a hobby and think about the people who will enjoy your game.  If you have fun with it and are grateful when you see others enjoy your work that is a great reward.  Remember that your work can inspire others, make someone smile or bring good friends together.  Those are great things and if you enjoy doing it, keep doing it.

In fact, I'd even go so far as to say if you're good at it, you should do it.  Sometimes when I wanted to give up on a game I'd push through simply because I felt a responsibility to see that idea go as far as it possibly could.

3)  Game design is work.  It seems like you'd get to play all day, but there are plenty of parts to the process that you won't enjoy.  They won't seem fun.

If we're talking computer games, there is a lot of work up front before you'll even be able to play a game of any complexity.  Learning to program is not easy.  Some applications make it easier than it used to be, but if you really want to build a game from the ground up it's going to require hours of learning, programming and testing.

I have programmed for years and just my simple Flash game, Pegged, about made my head explode when I tried to do the scoring piece.  Seriously, I had to get away from all people and noise, staring at my notes until it hurt.  No one gets that until they've seen it, but trust me.  It takes work.

4)  Know the difference between a dream and a wish...and make sure you're following a dream.  This applies to a lot more than game design, but it's good to throw this in.

When we wish for things we think about the end result--maybe we think about it too much--and we would love to somehow get to that without any real work.  We know we really want that end result.  It would be great and we'd be so happy to see it come true.  But it's a wish because it's a fantasy.  The end doesn't happen without the work.

To me, a dream is more realistic and worth working for.  Maybe some would call this a goal or a plan, and those calculated terms can comes into play, but I like to call it a dream.  It still involves the heart.  It's great to dream, but work toward the dream.  

I always say girls wish that One Direction would stop by their house when they're in town.  Boys wish they could make a living making computer games.  Both are about as unlikely.  Dream, but live in the real world!

5)  It is good to play many games, but do it with design in mind.  The fun part of the hobby of game design is that the "research" can be playing games.  I try to play as many as I can.

When you play, though, don't get so caught up in the playing that you forget about why you're taking the time to do it.  Learn what works and what doesn't.  Watch how the game affects others.  Think about what you understand and what you don't.  Make sure you know what makes something fun.  

Along with this, read about as many games as you can too.  Read reviews of good and bad games that you probably won't be able to play.  Read the rules or details of games from genres or styles you don't like.  Even though you don't actually play them, you'll still learn a ton.  Know what people have done and try to find the areas that are yet unexplored.

6)  Read articles and watch videos about game designers and the design process.  Austin Kleon, in his book Steal Like an Artist, says we do this not to get their ideas, but to get the thinking behind their ideas.

Look into the people who make your favorite games and figure out what makes them tick.  Read interviews about people who made successful games you don't really like.  What led to the decisions that resulted in those games?

When you read their stories you should get a better idea of what I meant about all the work that goes into it.  You will almost never hear a designer say that a game just fell in place.

7)  Record all your ideas for games.  You'll never be able to make them all and many of the ones you try to make won't really work.  Still, every idea is worth keeping because:

• In any art you should form the habit of getting and recording as many ideas as possible.
• It very well can be useful in another way at another time.

Watch my video on how to make games if you're interested in hearing more about keeping a game idea notebook.  (There are a few other good tips in that two part series as well!)

8)  Keep producing while the others play.  Never just play.  This might sound a lot like tip #5 above, but it encompasses all your research, play and work on game design.

If you do the things listed above, you'll be working on your craft even when it feels like you're having some fun.  You'll be getting better every day while others are playing and that's a huge edge.  

Links to resources

I usually make board and card games, so I am mostly familiar with those resources.  Here are a few starting points based on the steps above and some are related to computer games as well.

• Designer interviews at Fair Play Games - I interviewed a lot of board game designers several years ago.  Their tips on design can still be useful.
• Tips for Success from Dominic Crapuchettes - Dominic is the most successful game designer that I know personally.  He worked hard to bring his dreams to life and he's enjoying the rewards.  
• Tom Vasel's game designer interviews - Tom interviewed many game designers over the years.  Here they are compiled on the Boardgame Geek website.
• The Boardgame Geek - Speaking of this site, it's a great place to learn about tons of games (good and bad) throughout the ages.  They have subsections of the site devoted to video games and role playing games too.
• Inspiring Creativity - Here's a post I wrote in 2012 about a friend of mine who creates iOS games.  Be sure to read Kory's post about how he made Blockhouse.  It's a great example of the work that goes into even a "simple" game.
• Meeting with experts - Last school year two of my designer friends met with some of my students in a Google Hangout.  I wrote about that experience and some of their tips in this post.
• My posts on game design - This is not the most organized way to find the information, but the link will take you to all the posts tagged "computer game programming" from this blog.  
• Making What's It to Ya? - Here's my fairly detailed account of how one of my most popular games became an idea in my head and went around the world.  Here's the brief story as a video.
• How to Make Games - I linked to this above, but wanted to put it here two.  Part 1 and Part 2 of this presentation can be found on YouTube.  They haven't been very popular, but I gave away some gems in there, in my opinion!

The Big Question - Starting a conversation about change in any organization

Start to change the culture by asking the right question.

When I ask this question shown in the video, it never fails to generate some thoughtful discussion.  In any organization this question gets to the heart of the matter. It leads to other driving questions and can help leaders think of ways to initiate positive change.

 I will be glad to hear any comments that will help me improve the presentation of these ideas.

Forget career planning - Do something big now

Update 5/22/2013: Here's a motivational song and lyric video for the classroom I created based on the idea in this blog post. It comes after a year of putting these thoughts into practice.

I was very excited this week to talk to our middle school Digital Media class. I don't regularly teach in that classroom, but I am considered to be a teacher in my district.  That means I end up as sort of a guest speaker in various classrooms K - 12 and I especially love it when I get to address this particular group.

I tell them why I think Digital Media is the best class we offer.

This year as I prepared my talk I realized how insane it is to talk to these kids, ages 11-14 about the career they'll have someday. When I taught high school math I would always talk about the world of work as a motivation for learning, but I’m done with that approach.  It wasn’t terribly effective five years ago when I taught math and it feels even less so now, especially as I see more apathy in grades 4 - 8.

Now I try to motivate them with what gets me excited.  I am pumped (honestly, I lost sleep over this) when I can tell them about the powerful tools that allow them to connect like never before so they can realize their dreams.

Never in the history of the world have we had tools that made it so easy to start on those dreams right away. It makes no sense to me to try to motivate students with the promise of a good job in 8 to 10 years when a tidal wave of fascinating entertainment will hit them seconds after we let them turn their phones back on.

So I gave my talk and I saw that glimmer of hope in some of their eyes. I told them about the books, movies, songs, games and other great gifts that I know are in their minds waiting to get free to the world. I believe it completely and I look forward to encouraging them more as I continue to work with their teacher.

I summed all this (and more) up this way in my presentation:

It has never been easier to start something big RIGHT NOW.  

And it has never been easier to just play.  

Choose wisely.

On the way to work that morning I saw the sunrise (we haven’t seen a lot of the sun recently here in Michigan) and I grabbed a picture.  I combined the two here:

But after the talk I got thinking, what exactly can they start?  Our culture bombards our kids with so much to do that some don't know how to begin anything original.  I made a list of goals they can start on not in weeks, months or years, but right now. I will use and develop the list as I continue working with learners of all ages.

First, the basic rules:

• Start a blog.
• Copy nothing.  You must make all elements from scratch.
• If you succeed in a goal, blog about it and include pictures. 
• If you fail, blog about it and include pictures. 

Some goals you can starting working toward right now:

• Make something digital that your parents will be so proud of they’ll share it on Facebook.
• Make a video and get X views in week on YouTube video.  Keep increasing X each time.
• Whatever your teacher assigns, ask if you can do a different project.  If the teacher says no, do it anyway (along with the real assignment!).  Show the teacher your work.
• Make a digital lesson for a younger sibling or family member.  Pick a topic he or she will study in the future so they will already know it when they get to it.
• What type of entertainment do you usually turn to in your freetime?  Instead of sucking up someone else’s idea, start making your own. 
• Make a gift for someone's birthday or a holiday on CafePress or some other site where you can create and order products. 
• Pick your favorite charity or cause. Make something online and sell it.  Donate whatever you make to your charity or cause.  

I'm confident that seriously working toward any of these goals will help our students acquire at least as many career skills as our other efforts have.

What are some other great goals students can start on right away?

The Three P's of Success - What makes a full life?

From 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ex_magician/4587972292/ 

When I taught high school seniors in a class about life goals they would often talk about wanting to "live life to the full".  The phrase turned up on mission statements and final presentations but it was rarely defined.  


What does it mean to live a full life?  


Certainly a full life would be defined differently in specifics by each of us, but I didn't like that being an excuse to get away with a throwaway line.  


Wasn't there something we could agree on as a basis for discussion or written reflection?


I knew from their conversations that their vision of a full life looked like crazy vacations with friends over spring break and having a nice house and car.  I hoped to get them beyond superficial dreams that would cost more than they realized (almost all of them lived with parents).  I wanted to get them thinking about responsibility too.

After weeks of reading and hearing their thoughts, I put together a few activities and presentations that I called the 3 P's of Success.  I could tell from engagement and comments that it connected with many of them.  I'm not teaching that class any longer, but the themes still are apparent in my work.

Here are three P's with a little elaboration.
Passion - A student can spend a lot of time in school without experiencing much passion.  It's a shame that I was discovering this while working with seniors, kids that had been in the system for almost 13 years.  For this "P", it was an exploration of figuring out what good things they liked to do.  I developed a few questions to let them write about that.

________

Purpose - If passion is what they liked to do, purpose is what they should do.  While our passions almost certainly come into play, purpose is what we're meant to do even if we don't really feel like it in moment.  It's the piece I think students were forgetting when they envisioned lives of fun and material possessions.  


It's also a realm that can touch on matters of faith.  A lot of teachers won't go there, but I refused to back away from this vital concept that I know is an important component in the lives of many successful adults.

This was my approach.  Using thought provoking questions I encouraged the students to consider their purpose in writing.  I told the classes that for some questions, this topic will bring up matters of faith, religion or spirituality for some people.  I made it clear that they were in no way required to include those elements in answers.  At the same time, however, they should feel completely comfortable expressing those thoughts on the assignment.

For writings like this, I never cared if my students expressed very different religious beliefs or if they had no beliefs at all.  I just wanted them to consider the basis of their worldviews and how they affected their purpose.  Many of the comments I read from students as they expressed this important part of their lives surprised me in a good way.  I concluded that they needed to consider their lives in this way.  I decided I would never rob students of the chance to express their personal beliefs, but that I would encourage it in non-threatening ways.

________

Potential - Passion fuels us and purpose sets the direction, but potential is the final measure.  Did we achieve as much as we should?  Of course, potential is impossible to define in detail because our skills will always improve and often we'll be surprised by what we can do.  I just encouraged students to dream about what they could accomplish.  I hoped it would be the exciting start to a never ending process of discovery.

Here are two resources related to these ideas.  I discovered them long after teaching the class, but they provided some thoughts as I continue to develop my work:

• This is a great blog post about finding one's passion in three steps.  It combines the three elements together in different ways than I do, but it's well worth the read if this sounds useful to your work in teaching.  I particularly like the Three Movie Exercise for use with teens.
• And check out Seth Godin's book Poke the Box.  It is a quick read.  He has a few paragraphs on p. 64 about why he believes it is our moral obligation to seize an opportunity.  It's a great thought for discussion and it fits well with the three P's.

I'll be glad to hear other thoughts you might have on this or activities you use with students.

The Big Question

I wrote last week about asking better questions.  Here's my short presentation on the question that I ask now as I try to view school from the perspective of the students.  I pose it to teachers and I keep trying to think of good answers for it that I can put into practice next year.  If you've got some suggestions or solutions that you've seen work, I'd love to hear them.

Explorations in Creative Technology Projects

Here are links to two course portfolios I developed over the summer as I finished up my master's program. Both focus on inspiring students through creativity.

Explorations in Game Design and Game Activities in the Classroom - Two activities in this course project focus on ways I used game design in classrooms. One used Gamestar Mechanic in the math class and the other used some variations on my party game design in a Mythology class.

Technology Course for Alternative High School - This was a very ideal project I proposed over last summer. (Why does it only take a week of summer to become extremely idealistic??) The idea was to motivate students by focusing on their passion to create within their areas of interest. As it turned out, plans changed in my own district and I didn't even get to implement the more realistic version of this course yet. Some of the concepts have carried over into other technology projects I refer too in this blog.