Young Gamers Summer Camp Curriculum

Below is the current information and curriculum for the Young Gamers Summer Camp. It is currently under construction. Most details should be included by 5/27. Again, if you have any questions, feel free to contact Dana Nelson at heibaiwow@gmail.com

Day 1: History and Application of VGs

• Begin with board games: Robo Rally + Fluxx (game design and rules demo)
• Then roll into history of games:
  • arcade → consoles → PC → mobiile
    • Arcade: Pac-Man, Asteroids, Tetris
    • Consoles: Atari, Centurion, Nintendo, Sega, Playstation
    • PC: Doom, Myst, MMOs, Facebook/casual games (Slingo2 et al)
    • Mobile: Shadow Cities, Plants v. Zombies, Angry Birds
    • Gamification of real life: plague modeling in WoW, Ponzi schemes in EVE Online, Fitocracy

Day 2: Rules in video games / Party composition

• Talk about party roles as reflections of real life attributes
• Form 2-3 teams out of the students based on their “role/class”
• Play Left for Dead 2 or Little Big Planet 2 for team-building
• Portal 2 for team-playing
• Basic teamwork strategies + communication
• Intro to overall project w/ discussion on game genres (tower-defense, puzzle, adventure, FPS, arcade-style) end with what genre of game they want to make
• Homework: come up with 1 character or game object each

Day 3: Intro tech

• Start w/ show and tell of homework
• Give them paper and have them story-board game rules and mechanics, with caveat that this is draft 1; cap at 2.5h
• Intro to Processing.js graphics

Day 4: All graphics*

• Start the day by playing Minecraft for an hour, goal to be determined in class.
• Then work on Processing.js graphics collaboratively (encapsulate each graphic as an object in Processing.js)

Day 5:

• Start the day with an hour of Portal 2, discuss (co-op play only)
• Write out action logic on paper, turn into Processing.js
• End with LFD2/Little Big Planet 2

Day 6:

• Start with Sonic the Hedgehog, (or any other side-scrolling game) discuss
• Keep working on Processing.js with your team
• End with half hour of Mario (again, for the sake of side scroller)

Day 7:

• Start with a racing game (F-Zero X or Mario Kart)
• Keep iterating Processing.js with your team
• End with half hour of Burbenog (Warcraft 3 mod, tower defense)

Day 8:

• Start with Mortal Kombat (or any fighting game)
• Keep iterating Processing.js with your team
• End with Marvel v. Capcom

Day 9:

• Start with Portal 2
• Keep iterating Processing.js with your team
• End with LFD2/LBP2. Keep iterating Processing.js with your team

Day 10:

• Finish and demo, exchange team contact info to establish a mailing list for kids to continue development