Video Game Developer for Youth Programming

Save to Favorites

Kids get excited about designing their own digital games. And so do we!

Skilled volunteers can help us transition youth from content consumers to content creators by introducing them to the latest digital and gaming productivity tools. Game design in particular offers many opportunities to develop higher order thinking skills like understanding and applying systems thinking, creative problem solving, storytelling, programming and collaborating with others.

We will be using free game development software like Stencyl and/or GameMaker, but are open to other options.

We would like to introduce a Video Dev 101 class, targeting ages 7-11. The preliminary course description is as follows:

Video Game Development 101

Learn basic programming concepts through making an interactive game. Kids refine their design, logic and problem-solving abilities. Plus learn to express ideas and creativity in unique ways.

This course would take place the following dates

Session 1:

October 7, 14, 21, 28

November 4, 18,

Session 2

December 4,9, 16,

Jan 6, 13, 20

Classes would be from 5pm - 6pm on Fridays and are limited to 6 students per session. We would be asking students to bring their own pads or laptops, and would use a free game development program (suggestions are welcome).

We are looking for volunteers to host the class, ideally we would have 1 volunteer throughout a session, so the students can see a consistent face, but realistically we know that asking for that much of a commitment is difficult.