November 2007 — News
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Getting Started with Videogame Development
2. Design a game yourself. Though students may be quick to jump at the opportunity to design games, teachers may be more reluctant. For most game development software, online communities exist that include access to discussion forums and tutorials to assist the novice game designer, e.g., see Game Learning (http://www.gamelearning.net/). Most of the software mentioned earlier is available for free download. Download and play with the software.
3. Have kids play games. Expose students to the types of games that are available for educational purposes. Students may be more successful when designing their own games if they have seen examples. Check out Gamequarium (http://www.gamequarium.com/), and Social Impact Games (http://www.socialimpactgames.com/) as examples.
4. Have students learn the software. Let students create games in order to become familiar with the interface of game development software and to realize the potential of the software. Once students are comfortable with the software interface, teachers can then have students create games that teach others about specific content areas. Thus, students can focus on content and not on the software.
5. Have students make games that are content-related. Though computer science teachers can easily integrate game development activities within the courses they teach, teachers in other content areas can also incorporate game development. For example, kids using RPG Maker XP could create a historical game that reconstructs experiences and interactions from the American Revolution. Many of the resources needed for such a game are already included within the software. Teachers could first immerse students in the content related to the American Revolution and then allow students to create a game that demonstrates their mastery of the content.
To Learn More
There are a number of journals (e.g. Game Studies, http://gamestudies.org/), gaming conferences (e.g. Games + Learning + Society, http://glsconference.org/2007/), summits (e.g. Federation of American scientists, http://www.fas.org/gamesummit/), and gaming initiatives (e.g. Serious Games, http://www.seriousgames.org/) to explore in addition to the software already highlighted.
For teachers who are interested in learning more about the research behind educational gaming, we would suggest the following three game research collection sites: Digiplay Initiative (http://digiplay.info/digibiblio), the Claims of Games (http://theclaimsofgames.netcipia.net/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome), and the IEEE-CS Task Force on Game Technology (http://www.ucalgary.ca/~jparker/TFGT/publications.html).
