Game Design Resources

This page is oriented towards of us those who teach game design. One the one hand, this includes instructors who are teaching game design to teachers who might use this knowledge in creating their own educational games. It also includes teachers that teach game design in K-16 programs as a means of both career prepration and general education, i.e. developing digital literacy.

To get started, here's some of the tools I use in my program:

Sauerbraten - This is a wonderful open source FPS game built on the Cube engine that has modding built directly into the game. It's always available so you can jump in in the middle of game play. Just press the letter E, and you can start building walls, adding elements, and changing the world. I've even watched kids use it as an element of game play. It also supports shared modding in the multi-player mode where multiple players can collaborate in modding. Again, this adds a whole new level to game play. Though it is not nearly as powerful as the industry standards such as Source or Unreal, it's a great program and best of all...IT'S FREE! As a teacher of Game Design, I find this tool a tremendous asset to get kids jump started into game design.

GameMaker - Though honestly a little long in the tooth, this program is still a tremendous application in the process of teaching game design.

Flash - I've used Flash in my classes for several years now and it presents a fantastic 2d game design environment. The only downside is that as it's programming language, ActionScript has evolved, the program has become more and more challenging to learn. In response to this, I am examing SwishMAX 2 which has many of it's features but does not require the level of coding expertise to get started.

SourceU - This is a new offer from Valve that allows K-12 programs to get Steam, and all the Half-life related games for only $10 per seat and gives full access and support to it's powerful moddin system. I plan to integrate this into my program in the fall of this year.

Softimage/XSI Mod Tool - This is a full featured, FREE version of the powerful Softimage 3d tool that links directly to the Source engine I mentioned above. It's a direct competitor of Maya & 3DS Maxx but has the added advantage over the PLE version of Maya in that schools can use it in a lab environment.

Scratch - From the MIT Media Lab's Lifelong Kindergarten Group, Scratch is a rich drag-and-drop programming environment suitable for kids ages 8 - 16. Yasmin Kafai and Kylie Peppler have published a number of papers assessing learning outcomes of students working on Scratch projects, particularly in after-school settings such as the LKG-administered Computer Clubhouses.