[game_edu] Teaching game design and programming simultaneously

[Lewis Pulsipher]

My experience and observation has always been that when you're trying to
teach beginners to program, whether for game development or for something
entirely different, there are two sets of problems, and when you try to
have them solve both sets at the same time it becomes very very difficult
for them.  One set of problems is how to solve the actual problem that
you're trying to turn into code.  This may be something simple like a
payroll report (deadly dull and not an example I recommend) or something as
complicated as even the simplest game design.  The other set of problems is
how to turn the solution into code that works and implements the solution.
For beginners, the coding problems alone are almost overwhelming,
especially for people who are not natural programmers and have been brought
up being taught that logic and precision are not important, which would
include most game development students.

The way around this is to either provide the solutions to the actual
problems and have the students code the solution, or to have them figure
out solutions to the actual problem and then show them the code that would
implement the solution.  For most beginning programming the second will be
more effective.  But if you're trying to teach game design to people, and
you're teaching them programming at the same time, then they're going to
focus on solving the coding problems and will learn virtually nothing about
game design.  That's why I start teaching game design with tabletop games
where students can focus on solutions to the problems of game design, not
on the problems of coding.  The solutions are much more transparent in a
tabletop game than they are in a computer game and they are much quicker to
implement and test.

If you insist on teaching video game production and game design at the same
time then the best you can do is provide a game production tool that does
not require actual coding, that is, Gamemaker or something like it.  I like
to teach students Gamemaker during the introduction to game development
course, which is often in the same semester as the beginning game design
course that uses tabletop games.  By the end of that semester they have
created a gamemaker game that is a clone of some famous classic game like
Space Invaders or Pac-Man and they have a tabletop game that they've
created from scratch.  If that doesn't feed their enthusiasm and make them
eager for more, what will?
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