Participation in the club was waning, so I made a simple activity for this week that asked students to play some digital games created in Scratch and answer some questions about them. It was meant to help them practice my Tip #1 (play and learn about as many games as possible). It also gives them a good idea what type of things they could program using Scratch.
I also finished up the first part of a second game designer interview this week. I'm really excited to share this one here and in the club.
It's with my friend Dominic Crapuchettes. As I say in the interview, he is definitely one of the most talented, dedicated and successful game designers I know. His experience and skill is invaluable and I was so grateful he took the time to help us this way. Please watch the video and share it with anyone interested in the hobby of creating games.
In Part 1 of the interview, Dominic talks about why he's still making games and he shares three "templates" that he has used to create new, original games.
I plan to share the second part of this interview next week.
Last week I started a badge system and listed some achievements. This post explains how I make the badges and share them with students. As an example, the image at the right is a badge students can earn by telling me a few games they learned about after practicing Tip #1.
If we were meeting face to face I'd be playing new and unique games with them to help them expand their knowledge. As it is, I have to encourage research. I created this document to get them started. Some of those game suggestions came from designers I've been contacting. More information on my work with them will come in later posts.
I should add that it's been a big challenge to have to teach kids about games through reading and watching videos. I have not been effective at it so far, so I'm working on ways to improve that.
Finally, I introduced the Tip #2 video and asked them a few questions about it. The tip is to start keeping game ideas in a notebook. Not all designers do that, but it has been a practice of mine from the start and I find it invaluable. Here's the video.
And later this week I will post this video. It's the first part of an interview with Stephen Glenn, a friend and successful game designer who started taking the hobby seriously right about when I did. He's had several more games published over the past two decades than I have and I appreciated his willingness to share it with me and the club.
In this first four-minute interview he talks about why he still makes games (it's not for the money!) and he gives a little insight into how he gets ideas for games. We had some issues with video in our Google Meet, so most of the visuals in the interview are just slides summing up his points.
I recently wrote about the virtual game design club I'm running for students in grades 5 - 8. I'll regularly post my resources so you can do the same or a similar program with your students.
This week I posted the following video to teach them a good first step toward becoming a game designer. If you want the short version, Tip #1 is to learn about as many games as possible.
I also used this image to promote the club on our school's social media.
And coming up soon in the club:
I'll post an activity later this week that will help them get started with the habit of learning about many games.
I just finished my first game designer interview this week with a friend. I hope to have that edited soon.
In Michigan our students will be out of school from March 13 through the end of summer. In an effort to inspire students to create and learn during this time, I revisited my idea of running a virtual game design club. Here's how I've started and a little about what I've learned.
I have big plans for the club, including:
A short series of tips for being a game designer.
Interviews through Google Meet with my friends who have made games.
Helping students publish their games online, whether they make digital or non-digital games.
Sharing everything we learn here on the blog, so students know there's a platform for the work we're doing.
First, I made a survey in Google Forms to check for interest. I asked our middle school teachers (grades 5 - 8) to post the survey in their Google Classrooms. The survey asked students about their favorite games, what types of games they'd like to make and what they hoped to get out of the club. In our school of about 360 students, I had 30 complete the survey. Most of those students were in grades 5 and 7. That's not many, but it was enough to get started.
I then created a class in Google Classroom. That's where we're managing all the classes at our secondary level. I invited the students who took the survey and I posted the introductory video below. I had a few goals with the video:
I wanted to let students know the club is meant to encourage them to create rather than just consume entertainment.
Of course a lot of the students are focused on making computer games. I normally design only board and card games. Programming can take a long time and be a challenge. I anticipate those being even more difficult obstacles as we work remotely. So I used this video to point out the huge number of games many people haven't discovered yet.
I wanted to pose the "big question": Do they want to make games badly enough to do the work required.
I made this video quickly, just talking as a clicked through a Google Slides presentation. (I started upping my game quickly for videos that I'll share soon.)
After watching the video, students were asked to complete another short Google Form. I asked the "big question" I referred to in the video. I also checked on their interest about making computer games versus board and card games.
Here are some things I've learned so far from this:
As we knew already, it is a challenge to encourage engagement when grades and credit are removed from the equation. That's what they're used to and now the rules have changed. The open ended questions I asked were sometimes answered with just a word or short phrase. That's not uncommon even during normal school, but I expected a little more enthusiasm for the topic of games and game design. Some of them did answer with thought and excitement behind it, of course.
Making engaging content is good practice for me. I hope to learn some tricks that helps me encourage the teachers I work with. It takes time and I wonder if what I'm putting into this club idea (not required for my job in any way) is sustainable. I completed the next video (which I'll write about in my next blog post). It was half as long and it took me probably four times longer to create.
Students are open to creating simple board and card games, but most interest still is leaning toward computer games. I'm hopeful I can keep their attention on non-digital games, since I think those are faster to go from idea to playable game (at least before one knows how to program). I'm hoping that faster cycle will keep them excited enough to continue learning.
Up next, we'll look at my first tip for aspiring game designers. If you're interested in following along with this, please let me know in the comments or by email. Follow me on Twitter for updates too.
When schools were closed in Michigan some elementary teachers in my district wanted to keep in touch with students using a website. I made these two short videos to help them get started. They are meant for beginners. Also, please understand they were done quickly and are quite informal.
I'm happy to say they helped teachers create sites who had never made one before. I got some sincere thanks for the effort.
This first one shows how to start a Site and add text, images and links.
This second video shows how to publish the site the first time and how to find the link so others can view it. Note that you have to publish the site again each time you edit it.
