[game_edu] Suggestions for HS Game Design Software

[Gillian Smith]

For the last five years, I've taught a month-long intensive course for
high school students (9th - 12th grade, 5 days/week, 3 hours/day) on
game design using Processing:

http://www.processing.org

I have been extremely happy with it! It's very easy to get some simple
2d animated scenes running on the first or second day of class, and
move on to games from there. There's also easy support for including
images, sounds, and even doing things like accessing the webcam.
There's a lot of free code available online for students to modify
(with attribution), if that's something you'd find acceptable in your
classroom. I'd be happy to share more information about our
experiences with you if you're interested.

Gillian Smith
PhD Candidate, UC Santa Cruz
Center for Games and Playable Media

On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 7:23 PM, Simon Etienne Rozner
<infonaut at gameonaut.com> wrote:

> Hi Charlie,

> Gamemaker as well as Construct are great for beginners to get some simple 2d

> prototypes up and running. If you teach about game design, thats more

> important to get something working quickly. More advanced and more time

> intense is Actionscript. Now also allows games to be built in 3d with stage

> 3d. It is quite to pick up and ideal for course durations as yours and

> students can focus on implementing game mechanics and create a good user

> experience instead of building engine foundations a lot. Also, it is very

> stable to work with. There are many great engines built on actionacript too

> such as flixel and isoLib. I suggest for starters the book game programming

> university. Gets you right into the thick of it and super for instructors to

> assist in creating a curriculum. Don't use it as is for class  directly

> though.

> Let me know if you wanna know more. I fared very well over here at Digipen

> teaching gamedesign students in flash and As3.

> Cheers,

> Simon

> Simon Rozner

> Lecturer

> DigiPen Institute of Technology Singapore

>

> On Oct 12, 2011, at 6:21, Coach Payne <coachpayne at aol.com> wrote:

>

> Hi Folks:

> Quick question - I'm developing a mini-term introduction to Game Design

> course at a high school.  In a course I taught in a prior school, a

> one-semester block course (90 minutes/day, 5 days/week), students used

> Alice, Scratch, Python, Ruby, and Game Maker to make games.  The favorites

> were Game Maker and Scratch.  I'd be interested in what the professional

> community might suggest.  I've used Ian Schreiber's material for a lot of my

> resource material.  An idea of what I've done in the past may be found

> at http://dpsgaming.wikispaces.com/ .

> Second question - when I lived near the Research Triangle, I was able to

> talk directly to game development professionals, and attended events in the

> area.  The area to which I've relocated seems to have a dearth of game

> developers.  I'd love to develop a relationship with people who REALLY make

> games, even at a distance.  I've had Skype-conferences in the past with West

> Coast developers, during which time the students would ask questions and

> interact with developers.  As a side note, the school where I'm currently

> teaching is an independent girls' school, but the minicourse would also

> include boys from their adjacent school.  I might be interested in

> developing this into a larger, perhaps year-long course at both schools,

> should I develop an interest in the idea.  I'm a physics teacher, but I

> taught computer science for many years.  (I'd love to teach Game Development

> with C++ or Java, but that's not going to happen in a miniterm!)

> Thanks.  I really would appreciate suggestions!

> Charlie Payne, M.Ed.

> Teacher of Physics

> St. Catherine's School

> Richmond, VA

>

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