Are you teaching to elementary school kids, college students, or some other group of people?

What is it exactly that you hope your students will walk out of your class with?

Well, art has no fundamental property, but that it appeals onto the pleasure side, to satisfy.

Interestingly, games are supposed to entertain, thus trying to achieve on very same purpose (most of time?), so game and art can go hand in hand pretty much.

You can study Theory of Games, if you wish to approach games from more technical and mathematical point of approach (determinism, chaos, etc.)

It's nice to get some replies. Thanks guys.

I'll get more specific. I am an art teacher who has taught an abundance of art courses in both traditional and digital mediums. Taking on game design for next year is a big undertaking, but there will be a lot of benefits that make it worthwhile. I will be building the course from scratch, but I have a lot of liberty in how I design it and as an art educator, I definitely want to emphasize the aesthetics and design as opposed to programming/coding (yawn...).

It seems like there's tons of options for teaching with free design programs: scratch, game salad, unity, gamemaker, the list goes on.

I have no idea what the previous poster was talking about 2D editor, etc.

There's really nothing confusing about what I'm talking about. I want to teach high school students how to create games digitally (I think the board game approach will not be welcomed and will waste time). However, I want to support this with thematic teaching around the basic concepts of game design. There are people already teaching the subject around the country, and I am looking for them to help me with ideas for curriculum. Plus I have no idea what programs I should build the course around. What I need is:

Free software

Software that will provide industry skills that will carry forward

The ability to draw and design characters through something like Photoshop to make exciting 3D games (as opposed to the stuff I've seen with Scratch, which is cheesy ready made sprites) or other games that don't provide much artistic option.

Something that's relatively easy to learn

Any ideas?

The IGDA thing isn't much help. You have to get a subscription which costs money in order to post questions. I haven't found an educator discussion forum for game design yet.

I have a hard time imagining students making a game, even in a game engine, without having somebody who can handle coding. You may be able to have students create good art assets that could be used in a game, but making a complete game is a large task.

Don't under estimate the value of having students create board/card games. You can learn a lot about game mechanics and the bar of entry is much lower. Art students could create well drawn boards/cards. If you could get access to a 3d printer students could model and paint custom figurines.

As for something like Photoshop to create somethign 3D. The industry mostly uses Maya to create 3d models. If getting student licences fits in your budget then that would be the most valuable experience if your students plan on entering the industry. If that is not in the budget, Blender is a great piece of open source software that has more than enough features for teaching a basic game design class. Keep in mind either of these pieces of software have a steep learning curve and you could easily fill multiple semesters of classes just teaching 3D modelling software.

I'll get more specific. I am an art teacher who has taught an abundance of art courses in both traditional and digital mediums. Taking on game design for next year is a big undertaking, but there will be a lot of benefits that make it worthwhile. I will be building the course from scratch, but I have a lot of liberty in how I design it and as an art educator, I definitely want to emphasize the aesthetics and design as opposed to programming/coding (yawn...).

As a professional programmer, I'll do my best not to take this personally :-P


As has been pointed out, underestimating the role of programming even using prebuilt tools is a dangerous game to start playing. Education is almost certainly not the place to shortchange bright young minds in terms of what you expose them to. But teaching programming is by itself a many-year task and most graduates are still terrible programmers without huge amounts of practice to draw upon.

It seems like there's tons of options for teaching with free design programs: scratch, game salad, unity, gamemaker, the list goes on.

Scratch is a programming tool. I don't know about game salad. Unity is an engine framework, and requires programming skills to use. GameMaker is going to take some programming. Etc.

My point here is that it seems like what you imagine to go into game development is really painfully divergent from the reality of how the medium works. This is a recipe for bad courses and resentful students.

There's really nothing confusing about what I'm talking about. I want to teach high school students how to create games digitally (I think the board game approach will not be welcomed and will waste time).

It isn't confusing at all - it's just wrongheaded. You're talking about an industrial medium that involves easily half a dozen disparate disciplines, each of which takes years to learn, and you want to cram the entirety into a semester or two and expect to have students walk away with actual value. This is just plain not feasible.

By contrast, look at schools that do nothing but teaching game development as undergraduate degrees. They consistently churn out mediocre students with half-baked training in a hodgepodge of fields, and very rarely produce experts. I would go so far as to say that those who succeed in such courses do so in spite of the school, not because of it.

You need to aim smaller and focus on a specific set of ideas that you can reasonably fit into a one or two semester class.

However, I want to support this with thematic teaching around the basic concepts of game design. There are people already teaching the subject around the country, and I am looking for them to help me with ideas for curriculum.

Game design concepts are timeless and not at all digital. Most game design courses actually spend a ton of time on things not at all related to digital games.

More tellingly, almost every course worth taking is going to be actually a package or degree, not a high school elective.

I think if you actually look into what courses are offered out there you'll find that they are either very introductory and conceptual (as I've repeatedly recommended) or much longer term and higher level than what you're proposing.

Plus I have no idea what programs I should build the course around. What I need is:

Free software
Software that will provide industry skills that will carry forward
The ability to draw and design characters through something like Photoshop to make exciting 3D games (as opposed to the stuff I've seen with Scratch, which is cheesy ready made sprites) or other games that don't provide much artistic option.
Something that's relatively easy to learn

Any ideas?

You're hunting unicorns.

The first two requirements by themselves almost totally eliminate every major 3D modeling and texturing package out there. They are either not free, or they are not used in industry.

No high-end modeling package is easy to learn. I'm not an artist by trade, but I'd say that just a 3D modeling course could be a full year by itself. Forget animation or texturing, that's easily another year.

The IGDA thing isn't much help. You have to get a subscription which costs money in order to post questions. I haven't found an educator discussion forum for game design yet.

It's not expensive and it's well worth the value. If I were you, I'd be seriously considering how committed I was to this project if a modest fee was enough to deter me from learning more.

I would so upvote ApochPiQ's post, if upvoting worked in the Lounge forum.

Firstly, for backing up the point that gameteacher is misusing/misunderstanding the term "game design" (as too many schools do);

Secondly, for backing up the value of the IGDA Education SIG. I admit it's not easy to get on the SIG's mailing list (I tried to find links for joining and also looked for how to join its Facebook group but couldn't find anything in 15 minutes or so).

I understand gameteacher's point that paper game design is less sexy than computer game creation. I also understand that it's easier to market a game class by calling it "game design" even if that isn't what you're actually teaching.

Wow, it seems like we're talking completely different languages. I don't know what's going on in the programming world, but as far as the education world goes, there are many teachers across the country doing the following:

1. using free software to teach students how to MAKE games

2. using a variety of software to teach multiple aspects of game design (i.e. mudbox, blender, photoshop, unity, etc.)

3. teaching gaming concepts AND how to make actual video games

4. using websites that don't even require the downloading of software. look at Gamestar Mechanic. That's something even middle school kids can work with, albeit it doesn't allow much creativity in actual design

5. teaching game design without knowing the first thing about coding. And why would you need to? Nowadays there are so many competitive and user-friendly programs and apps you can do almost anything digitally

I'm wondering if there is a basic misunderstanding here. My sense is that some of you have real high standards and don't see how game design would work pedagogically in a high school setting. Yes, it takes many years to learn the material well and yes this kind of work professionally utilizes many skills and teams of people for each aspect of a game. However, isn't some basic exposure to game design going to be a huge advantage to kids in terms of getting into the industry, given that 99% of students don't get this opportunity? And that's not even taking into account all the amazing learning that happens through this way of teaching and the use of digital tools.

I think it would be interesting for you to look at what's going on in game design at the high school level as it will be impacting the field in the future.

By contrast, look at schools that do nothing but teaching game development as undergraduate degrees. They consistently churn out mediocre students with half-baked training in a hodgepodge of fields, and very rarely produce experts. I would go so far as to say that those who succeed in such courses do so in spite of the school, not because of it.

Seriously? Nah i will take this as a slip of the tongue (on the keyboard :))

I can understand what you are saying in the context of this thread, so this might be a side note, ... but undergraduate courses are not there to produce experts. If this is the generic mindset of the industry leaders then i will say they are the ones who are naive. They seem to forget they once started somewhere themselves. You would probably need (on the average) 10 years of AAA experience in addition to university degree to be decently baked, talkless of becoming an expert.

Even the course the OP is intending (in high school)..., I guess such courses are meant to produce a spark that would trigger further study... not an end

Wow, it seems like we're talking completely different languages. I don't know what's going on in the programming world, but as far as the education world goes, there are many teachers across the country doing the following:

1. using free software to teach students how to MAKE games
2. using a variety of software to teach multiple aspects of game design (i.e. mudbox, blender, photoshop, unity, etc.)
3. teaching gaming concepts AND how to make actual video games
4. using websites that don't even require the downloading of software. look at Gamestar Mechanic. That's something even middle school kids can work with, albeit it doesn't allow much creativity in actual design
5. teaching game design without knowing the first thing about coding. And why would you need to? Nowadays there are so many competitive and user-friendly programs and apps you can do almost anything digitally

I'm wondering if there is a basic misunderstanding here. My sense is that some of you have real high standards and don't see how game design would work pedagogically in a high school setting. Yes, it takes many years to learn the material well and yes this kind of work professionally utilizes many skills and teams of people for each aspect of a game. However, isn't some basic exposure to game design going to be a huge advantage to kids in terms of getting into the industry, given that 99% of students don't get this opportunity? And that's not even taking into account all the amazing learning that happens through this way of teaching and the use of digital tools.

I think it would be interesting for you to look at what's going on in game design at the high school level as it will be impacting the field in the future.

Game development is a process. To teach a process, it's best if you have gone through the process yourself enough to thoroughly understand it. If you don't, your course will become a study hall where the students have to do research on their own without your guidance. Some students will learn without guidance, others won't. Whether this is a valid approach is your choice.

I can't tell how familiar you are with game development based on what you've said so far. I don't know if you've used any of the tools you mentioned to find out what their actual limitations are, if you've done some basic investigation, or if you're just repeating what you've heard from others.

Your use of terminology is off. You say "game design", but what you are describing is "game development". When we say "design", we typically mean the specific discipline of game development that focuses on creating the rules of a game, not the implementation of those rules. "Design" is like writing the script for a movie, without the acting or filming or CG work.

What specific kinds of ideas do you need?

- Do you want to learn the process of game development so you can teach it? Or do you already know this part?
- Do you want specific ideas for how you should structure your class? What kinds of goals your should give? How to structure classwork?
- Etc?

Okay, so I don't know all the terminology yet. Just to be clear, I want to teach the class so that the students are learning the aesthetics of video games and ultimately producing video games.

As for what I need, I would like to know which kinds of software fit the following criteria:

1. Free

2. Doesn't take up too much memory

3. Easy to learn

4. Cool graphics (like 3d)

5. Allows for artistic creativity

6. Connects to the field (i.e. recognized as a valuable skill by game schools and companies).

Once I know what kind of software to use, I will train myself on it and then place it into the curricular structure I already have for my art classes.

I will also be reading on game concepts, skills and the field itself in order to translate that content into lesson plans. The students will figure out the software beyond the basics that I will teach them. I don't mind incorporating board games and related things into the course provided there's enough time for students to learn the software and produce work that looks great and which is original.