I love being an adult, but there are times I'm jealous of my child. This week was one of them.
The Offspring was enrolled in the Santa Cruz Maker Factory's week-long Minecraft Camp and the one-day Intro to Game Design Course. People who know my child and I, know of our family's love of all things Minecraft; so it's no surprise the Minecraft Camp was a hit. But it was the Intro to Game Design (for 9-12 year olds) course that surprised me. It was the best enrichment activity for my small one I've seen in a while.
Okay... a little bit of background. I'm not the worlds best games programmer. I wrote a couple simple games in the early 80's for the Apple Lisa and Atari 520ST. I also worked at Linden Lab for a while, trying to make Second Life a better place for everyone. But I don't really consider myself a games programmer. Part of the reason is game developers are some of the most overworked computer programmers I've seen in a while. So it was with a mildly heavy heart I heard The Offspring select game development as a career at age 8. Yes, very cool my child wants to do something technical with an artistic bent; sad that it's a career that involves less sleep than a mother wishes for her child.
But seeing the joy that (not only) my child expressed during the Game Dev Course sorta changed my mind on this one. My kid positively lit up during the class.
Yesterday's class was taught by Joe Allington, who is himself finishing up a degree program in game design at UCSC. Joe was a great instructor, bringing a palpable love of the subject matter and excitement to the course. He used YoYo's GameMaker Studio as a platform to step the kids through game programming basics: (what we used to call) player graphics, basic game logic and simple animation. By the end of the course, the kids were adding their own animations and sounds, adding new game elements and effectively building completely new game levels. (Note: there's a free version of GameMaker Studio for Wintel and Mac at YoYo Game's web site - we downloaded it and are using it continue hacking platfomer levels.)
I give this course a thumbs up. If you have a child between 9 and 12 who likes games, check it out. (Also, I was happy to see the class was not all-male. Don't shortchange your daughters' futures by thinking they won't like or be able to handle game development. Girls can do GameDev too!)
The Offspring was enrolled in the Santa Cruz Maker Factory's week-long Minecraft Camp and the one-day Intro to Game Design Course. People who know my child and I, know of our family's love of all things Minecraft; so it's no surprise the Minecraft Camp was a hit. But it was the Intro to Game Design (for 9-12 year olds) course that surprised me. It was the best enrichment activity for my small one I've seen in a while.
Okay... a little bit of background. I'm not the worlds best games programmer. I wrote a couple simple games in the early 80's for the Apple Lisa and Atari 520ST. I also worked at Linden Lab for a while, trying to make Second Life a better place for everyone. But I don't really consider myself a games programmer. Part of the reason is game developers are some of the most overworked computer programmers I've seen in a while. So it was with a mildly heavy heart I heard The Offspring select game development as a career at age 8. Yes, very cool my child wants to do something technical with an artistic bent; sad that it's a career that involves less sleep than a mother wishes for her child.
But seeing the joy that (not only) my child expressed during the Game Dev Course sorta changed my mind on this one. My kid positively lit up during the class.
Yesterday's class was taught by Joe Allington, who is himself finishing up a degree program in game design at UCSC. Joe was a great instructor, bringing a palpable love of the subject matter and excitement to the course. He used YoYo's GameMaker Studio as a platform to step the kids through game programming basics: (what we used to call) player graphics, basic game logic and simple animation. By the end of the course, the kids were adding their own animations and sounds, adding new game elements and effectively building completely new game levels. (Note: there's a free version of GameMaker Studio for Wintel and Mac at YoYo Game's web site - we downloaded it and are using it continue hacking platfomer levels.)
I give this course a thumbs up. If you have a child between 9 and 12 who likes games, check it out. (Also, I was happy to see the class was not all-male. Don't shortchange your daughters' futures by thinking they won't like or be able to handle game development. Girls can do GameDev too!)
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