Haha, so much negativity. But I don't think it's unreasonable for a teacher to learn a code-free game making software and teach it to their students. I see no reason why he shouldn't pursue it. At a high school level it would be a really fun class, and I would certainly take it.

Thanks for keeping this grounded in reality!

Would you consider toning it down a bit? The evidence for your accusation is pretty thin, and right or wrong there's no reason for rude, constant harangues. Even if gameteacher were trying to get information indirectly (for some unfathomable reason), that's not against any rules.

Thank you!

Would you consider toning it down a bit?

Interesting.

Within that budget/timeframe/scope; Blender 3D would be the optimal hassle free choice. (i.e. no registration required, availability of tutorials, built-in game engine, 3D sculpting etc.)

Really?

It's sarcasm, not anger.

It's cool you want to learn, so why aren't you?

There are no shortcuts. Download Blender 3D and start watching tutorials. It can't be any easier.

I am gearing up to learn. I will look into Blender. Another teacher recommended and uses it as well. Thank you.

Blender can work for modeling, animation, and some scripting if you are using it as an engine. Blender might work well if your students are already familiar with 3D modeling and animating concepts.

Despite the uncivil and negative remarks from some people, I think the general track is solid. There are many courses that teach the basics of game development at that age level. Leveraging good tools, students can build a game they are proud of over the course of a few weeks or months.

There are courses that work as mentioned, iterating over all the different disciplines until the student has learned enough to build something, then letting them be free to explore specific aspects of a discipline. Generally the tradeoff of tools is that the more freedom it allows the more complex it is to learn and use.


Just be sure to name it a course on game development rather than on game design. As you're an art background, imagine signing up for a course on figure drawing only to learn when you attend that it will go over still life, landscapes, portraiture, sculpting, history, image composition, principles of perspective, light and shadow, and cover only a small amount of figure drawing that was the course's title. Such it is when you promise a course on game design but instead cover many different facets of development. Game design can be done without implementing an actual game. Too many already misuse the name.

Since we've been discussing game design and things non-digital, would it make sense for me to purchase some board/card games for lessons? And if so, which would you guys recommend?

I have a related question:

Would it make sense to break the course down into:

a section on game design

a section on modeling software (like mudbox)

a section on video game production

a section on history and aesthetics of games (digital and non-digital)

These could be loosely tied together. None would go too in-depth as they'd all be introductory but it would be looking at each component separately. The idea would be that students would have that foundation to go out and explore further on their own or in college

The other approach would be to tie these components together in a progressive evolution towards a final video game product that would be fairly complex.

What are your thoughts on the feasibility or not of either of these approaches to curriculum?

would it make sense for me to purchase some board/card games for lessons? And if so, which would you guys recommend?

Of course it makes sense. Some good ones are Set, Battleship, and Up The River. If they're hard to find in stores, try Ebay.
Set illustrates the importance of sets, numbers, and how they can add to complexity.
Battleship is good for design modification exercises.
Up The River illustrates the principle of emergent gameplay. See Tracy Fullerton's book for ways to use it.
You can also use Checkers for design modification exercises.

Would it make sense to break the course down into:
a section on game design
a section on modeling software (like mudbox)
a section on video game production
a section on history and aesthetics of games (digital and non-digital)
These could be loosely tied together.

That breakdown could make sense.

Beware that "production" is another loaded word in the entertainment industry. Producers and executive producers have a job of production. It is a role of negotiating schedules, budgets, staffing, marketing, public relations, external partners, and otherwise working as the communicative glue that binds together all the internal disciplines and external groups. I'm not sure if you meant actual "production" as in this role, or if you meant it as in "the main development cycle". Either is appropriate for a general course for youth.

You might also stress that "game designer" as a job title is not an entry level role. A game designer is effectively given the helm of a multi-million dollar project, or a similar 7-figure portion of an 8-figure or 9-figure project under the supervision of a lead designer.

Tom's list of games to modify is good, and there are many others. Battleship is one of my favorites for simple modifications and historically it has had all kinds of variants. Shots-per-ship, multiple shots, variations of shots like torpedos, spy planes over an area, moving ships, unknown shots ("five shots fired, two hit") and much more.

Another fun modification game is Flux, since the game is already naturally built around constantly-varying rules.

There are many CCG game tools where you can make your own games in the style of Magic: the Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh, if people in the class are already comfortable with the concepts of either game system creating a new family of cards with a new mechanic is a fun exercise, and can demonstrate the difficulty in keeping a game balanced, or even better, consistently imbalanced.

Since we've been discussing game design and things non-digital, would it make sense for me to purchase some board/card games for lessons? And if so, which would you guys recommend?

I have a related question:
Would it make sense to break the course down into:
a section on game design
a section on modeling software (like mudbox)
a section on video game production
a section on history and aesthetics of games (digital and non-digital)
These could be loosely tied together. None would go too in-depth as they'd all be introductory but it would be looking at each component separately. The idea would be that students would have that foundation to go out and explore further on their own or in college

The other approach would be to tie these components together in a progressive evolution towards a final video game product that would be fairly complex.

What are your thoughts on the feasibility or not of either of these approaches to curriculum?

Now we're getting somewhere!

I might play around with the order of how you present the various elements; for example, I personally would interleave the historical and aesthetic components in with "creative" assignments. So for example, here's some course work on the history of 2D arcade games, now here's some tools like GameMaker or Unity2D that can get you going with a library of assets, now here's some art tools to make your own assets, etc.

Ultimately that's mostly going to be subjective, though, and highly dependent on the sort of student you anticipate taking the class. Some students will do best with lots of creative, open-ended stuff, and others may just be interested in learning about the history and state of the art. My experience suggests that keeping things on a rotation can help keep the attention of students who lean more towards one side than the other. But that's just a random idea.


My gut feeling is that having students produce a substantial project is probably too much to ask. I base this on colleges like Digipen and Full Sail where students are presented with a full time schedule of coursework and required to make a game a year (or sometimes, per semester). This is a very frantic pace and I worry that trying to condense something of that scale into a high school classroom is just a recipe for exhaustion.

That said, you could definitely have a final project that integrates all the different stuff covered during the year, and offer to showcase the results for everyone in class to play. (Bonus points if you can get school support for doing a "show off to everyone" day.)

The big challenge for the average student is something you've personally encountered in your time here: managing scope. Everyone is going to want to make a huge game if it's their first go at making a game. If you can gently but firmly instill in your class the fact that scope is a real beast to get right, you'll greatly improve your odds of having students crank out quality projects. Teaching them to scope by doing it repeatedly on assignments is a great trick for that. Another powerful tool here is peer review: everyone write down your game concept, and then show it to the class. The class has to vote on how many weeks they think it would take to create your idea. This can be a little harsh but it's a valuable dose of reality, and something that a lot of game developers do on a regular basis anyways.


Overall I think this is moving in a good direction. It'll be important to concretize a few elements (others have talked about that) and I'm sure it'll need some tweaking, but I feel like this is substantially more on track now.