Hello Game Devs!

So, I will jump right in and tell you that I am Gabriel, aka in the interwebz as GabeTHEGeek. I did everything backwards. I got into the industry by pure chance doing QA. I worked on videos games from top 20 publishers.....Again (TOP 20 Publishers). That is the best hint I can give without breaking NDA agreements lol. Actually some games I can admit to are Dirt2 and CrimeCraft (Shame I know). I was in QA for about 4 years working on Facebook/Web/Console/Handheld titles

While I was still doing QA, I decided to go back to school at about age 21 just to get a degree and be smart. I am now moving into programming and Design. All my contacts have landed me at some prominent Baltimore studios doing internships and paid contract work. While I'm not working fulltime in the industry anymore until I graduate school, I was just hired by a non-profit to teach Video Game related classes.

Having never worked with high school students 9-12, What do you think would be easy, quick, and good enough to teach the right skills.

I was thinking:
GameMaker
Contruct2
Pen and Paper Game Design - Leaning towards this because I am a board game nerd!

Programming
Possible Programming in AS3 and using Flash or Flash Develop.

Any ideas for what I could use or links would be helpful. I have a week to prepare my lesson.

Pen and paper sounds boring.

Shot in the dark here but, Say hi to Spook (Corey) for me.

I just recently read up on Love2D. You could check it out. it seems fairly straight forward and easy to use.

I think it depends on the student's current programming knowledge and skills, and your specific focus for this class.

PyGame and Love2D are excellent, and if this is a longer term class (or series of classes) with students who actually have an interest in programming, I'd say go with those.

But if these are kids that just want to design their own games, GameMaker might be a better choice. You can throw together some fairly in depth games just with a point-n-click interface.. and use the GML as things get more complicated. This gets them designing games faster, which seems to be the aim of the class. You wouldn't want your students getting too hung up on the technical details if they joined the class just to design their own game.

I would say a card/board game class could be a lot of fun. It really does depend on what you want the students to take away from the elective skillwise.

I think it depends on the student's current programming knowledge and skills, and your specific focus for this class.

PyGame and Love2D are excellent, and if this is a longer term class (or series of classes) with students who actually have an interest in programming, I'd say go with those.

But if these are kids that just want to design their own games, GameMaker might be a better choice. You can throw together some fairly in depth games just with a point-n-click interface.. and use the GML as things get more complicated. This gets them designing games faster, which seems to be the aim of the class. You wouldn't want your students getting too hung up on the technical details if they joined the class just to design their own game.

Love2d! Pretty impressive, I will run through some quick stuff and check that out.

• As far as focus, they left it up in the air as long as it relates to gaming. More of a experiment and see if they can learn the material.
  
• Programming knowledge is null, but they are some pretty tech savvy kids. Some of them have been learning 3DS Max already and Photoshop.
  
• I agree with getting them right in and start making games totally and I know they would enjoy it but I can'y knock the feeling that programming ....even simple stuff will go further...maybe im wrong?
  
  
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I would say a card/board game class could be a lot of fun. It really does depend on what you want the students to take away from the elective skillwise.

I do what them to have learned some type of real skill. The goal is to trick them into learning something solid but through games.