Introducing Game Maker

This year, for the first time I've been here, we've been given the go ahead to design and teach STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) courses. I considered a few different options for my course, but eventually settled on one specifically drawing upon student interests and simultaneously upon my own skill-set, Game Maker. The focus of this course is to introduce students to the lengthy, tedious, and highly frustrating process of video game design.

As you can imagine with a teenage male population restricted from playing video games, interest was exceptionally high in participating. It meant the students would have to do plenty of research, play different types of games, analyze color schemes, sounds, music, story lines, scoring, etc. It also meant they would have to be exceptionally detailed, be technically proficient, creative, and be willing to work hard understanding and applying the underlying mathematics.

Not surprisingly, a few dropouts emerged over the first month when they realized it would be the most work they may ever put into a class.

Game Maker Programming Interface

Through a bit of luck and some initiative, I was able to acquire software for our Macbooks with a curriculum that included the anatomy of game design and game design itself.  This was all free which is a nice advantage to have with shrinking budgets.

In the 3 months we have been working at this, we have built a number of games including Pac-Man, Pong, Break-Thru, Helicopter and Pinball. Many of the students are now creating artwork and concepts for their own games which we plan to release before Christmas to the facility for a gaming competition.

Designing the Pac-Mac room

Aside from the technical aspects of teaching this class, there is another extraordinary angle the students and I have discovered...

We are our best version of ourselves when we are playing games. We work together showing pro-social behaviors. We believe any goal is attainable. We are disciplined enough to not give up. We learn new behaviors and apply them easily and effortlessly.

Our new goal is to figure out how to translate what we do in video games to everyday behavior.

Resources:
http://www.yoyogames.com