NIPPERSMARCH � 31

FOCU

SEDU

CATIO

N

s the games industry has matured, so hasits workforce. A growing number ofdevelopers have even managed to findenough time between crunches to start

their own families.This extra responsibility brings new pleasures,

including the opportunity to share the delights of ourcraft with the (biological) next generation. Over thepast year I have done just this, teaching children howto develop their own computer games as part of aneducational research project. This article is an informalaccount of my experiences and observations, completewith some anecdotes that I don’t get the chance to airin my academic work.

Games developers generally need less convincingthan most of the educational and motivational benefitsof making games. This is probably because we canrelate to the role it has played in our own creative andintellectual development. I wrote my first game at theage of ten, and whilst the gameplay left a lot to bedesired, the program demonstrated a mathematicaland logical knowledge that was far beyond anything I’dlearnt at school. Over the subsequent years, myenthusiasm for algebra and geometry was not driven bya mathematical interest at all, but a creative one inrealising my personal gaming projects.

PRIMARY NUMBERSIt’s not hard to see that games development provides amotivating context in which to apply skills as diverse asphysics, teamwork and art. But what are the practicalitiesand what tools are available to support it?

Last year we started a weekly club at a primary schoolin Sheffield, teaching seven to 11 year-olds how to make2D web games using a tool called Stagecast Creator.Stagecast enables children to program by makingpicture-based rules, which control how things should lookbefore and after a rule is applied. It’s easy to pick upand accessible to beginners of any age.

The club proved hugely popular. The initial intake of 20children in one club almost immediately became 40 childrenin two clubs. Since then, two more intakes have passed through,and enthusiasm for the club shows no sign of abating.

After a half-term of tutorials to bring them up to speed, thechildren are given free to design and make their own gameideas. They get very excited, and many children invest incredibleeffort making elaborate game designs, with colourful illustrations

and in-depth back-stories. Theythen spend the second half-termworking independently on theirgames, whilst we run aroundfrantically trying to help thosethat get stuck. Most childrendraw all their own artwork,record their own sound effectsand do 99 per cent of theprogramming too.

You can play their finished games on the gallery pages of theschool website (www.reignhead.sheffield.sch.uk). My favouritesinclude a game about the adventures of a quartz crystal calledNile; a military rescue game set in World War II; and a game inwhich you have to control five cats at the same time.

Although Stagecast incorporates mathematical concepts suchas co-ordinates and basic algebra, these were beyond the graspof most of our young audience. It’s the educational content that’snot explicitly in the tool that’s provided the most interesting benefits.

Several children that excelled at the club were not amongst theusual set of high achievers. They were particularly weak at literacy.Poor literacy often has a knock on effect; all subjects require youto be able to read questions, and write answers that can be read.However, literacy skills have no bearing on the visual method ofprogramming used in Stagecast, so it gave these children a rare �

If you want to be playing games in your 50s, maybe you should help inspire the nextgeneration of games developers. Jacob Habgood goes back to school…

Passing on the family trade

Finding Amy and the Key Does

exactly what it says on the tin. Avoid

the horde of mummies whilst trying

to find your way to Amy and the key

that releases her from her prison

(boy, aged 8).

British Invaders A rescuemission inspired by a schooltopic on World War II. Takeout the guards at the maingate and disguise yourself inan enemy uniform beforestealing a tank (boy, aged 8).

Hungry Dragon Become a Komododragon with an insatiable appetite,eating everything from frogs andmice, to cows and horses. Thethemed Japanese writing and thedragon on the title screen areinspired (girl, aged 7).

BOYS AND GIRLS COME OUT TO PLAYEqual number of girls and boys attend our primary school club, and thedifferences between the kinds of games they make can be intriguing.The greatest distinction seems to be that whilst the boys tend to punishfailure by sending players back to the start, girls do not, and prefer tomotivate players with rewards along the way instead.

Many boys and girls create games that are completely linear frombeginning to end, and more like a story than a game. However, thegirls often take this one step further, and take control away from theplayer altogether. Girls are also much more inclined to includeeducational content in their games – even when the boys have beenasked to. Boys tend to set their games in fantasy worlds or different timeperiods, whilst girls are happy keeping their feet on the ground in thereal, present day world.

“Many childreninvest incredibleeffort makingelaborate gamedesigns…”

A

31-32 Dev48_v2 23/2/05 2:47 pm Page 1

32 � MARCHNIPPERS

opportunity to shine. For one such child, therealisation that he could be the best at somethinggave him such a tangible boost to his self-esteem, that both his parents and class teacherobserved a consequent improvement across allhis school subjects. Such successes really madethe project worthwhile, providing an insight intothe rewards of the teaching profession.

OLDER AND WISERIn a second project, we ran a week-longholiday school for 12 to 14 year-olds inNottingham. The event was funded by theEducational Software Charity and run incollaboration with Screenplay, Nottingham’sannual festival of gaming culture. WhilstStagecast is very simple to use, the resultscan feel a bit clunky and we felt we neededsomething more professional to appeal to ateenage audience.

Game Maker is just such a tool, createdby Professor Mark Overmars of UtrechtUniversity, and available for free through itswebsite. Game Maker enables programs tobe created using an elegant system oficonic events and actions, which aredragged and dropped into place. It alsohas an underlying scripting language thatcan be used to perform more sophisticatedcoding tasks as the user’s programming skills develop.This dual system gives Game Maker an ideal combination ofcharacteristics – a low entry level, but a high-ceiling in terms ofwhat can be achieved with the tool. This meant we could use it toseed the children’s interest in the limited time frame of a holidayschool, and then leave them to explore its depths at their leisure.

The event was extremely well received, and we were astonishedby the degree of engagement that a bunch of teenagers candemonstrate. At this level, making games challenges logical andmathematical skills as well as creative ones, yet the dropout ratewas negligible, despite having to sacrifice over ten hours of theirown holiday time.

After the event we tried to maintain contact and providesupport to the students through an online forum. This was lesssuccessful, but it was clear that the children had enjoyed theactual event, and would have eagerly attended more of thesesessions if they were available.

CLASS ACTSo will all children of the future learn everything they need toknow from playing games? Of course not. Learning is certainly atits most powerful when motivating and personally meaningful, butchildren are motivated by different things.

There will always be children who will learn more fromperforming a play, painting a picture or reading a book than anykind of interaction with a computer game. Nonetheless, makinggames can provide a valuable experience for some children, andit would be great if more developers could get involved.

There may actually be fewer barriers to this than you think. Icame into the project with no teaching experience at all and stillwouldn’t last five minutes with a ‘real’ class. But children areremarkably forgiving when they are doing something asmotivating as making computer games. All my tutorials andresources are available to download from my website, where youwill also find a community support forum for interested parties.Please do feel free to check them out.

In my experience, schools and E-Learning centres are only tookeen to host this kind of activity, and the rewards are certainlywell worth the effort. So why not strike a blow for your own work-life balance, and take some time off to inspire the next generationof game developers?� www.gamelearning.net

Before returning to both universityand primary school, Jacob spentseven years as a lead programmerat Gremlin and Infogrames inSheffield. He currently has ascholarship from the University ofNottingham’s Learning SciencesResearch Institute, to undertake aPh.D. thesis on the educationalpotential of computer games. Goldstar for effort, Jacob!

MINIBIO

Nile the Quartz Crystal An educational game about rocks andminerals. Nile (a quartz crystal) must find his way through a mazein order to retrieve semi-precious minerals (boy, aged 8).

The Picnic It’s a bug feeding frenzy! Help the beetle eat asmuch of the picnic grub as he can before the greedycomputer-controlled worm gets there (girl, aged 9).

�CHILDREN’S DEVELOPMENT TOOLSSTAGECAST CREATOR 2www.stagecast.comDifficulty Absolute beginner.Age group 7+OS Windows, Macintosh and Unix.Cost £30 + p&p from the Stagecast website.Description Programming with pictures. Stagecast provides anextremely easy way to make simple 2D web games. Comes with anexcellent set of game-like tutorials and an evaluation version isavailable from the website. Alternative ToonTalk (www.toontalk.com)

GAME MAKERwww.gamemaker.nlDifficulty Beginner to intermediate.Age group 10+OS Windows.Cost Free (£10 optional registration) from the Game Maker website.Description Drag-and-drop programming with hidden depths. Anexcellent system for learning how to create professional looking 2Dgames. Provides a simple programming system for beginners and apowerful scripting language for the more adventurous.Alternative The Games Factory (www.clickteam.com)

BLITZ 3Dwww.blitzbasic.comDifficulty Intermediate to advanced.Age Group 13+ OS Windows.Cost £55 from the Blitz Basic website.Description A powerful BASIC programming language, specifically formaking games. Provides complete functionality for making 3D games,including lights, cameras and animated characters. Not for beginners,but much easier than learning to make games in C. Evaluation versionavailable from website.Alternative Dark Basic (www.darkbasic.com)

PASS NOTES� Take full advantage of free

software evaluations

� Play with the tools yourself, soyou can answer any questions

� Don’t take over when childrenget stuck; provide support tohelp them help themselves

� Suggest making a game abouta current school topic, so theycan show it to their classmates

� Remember, not every child willenjoy making games. Funcannot be imposed.

31-32 Dev48_v2 23/2/05 2:47 pm Page 2