I am planning a 3-day workshop on video game development as part of a “Practicing Professions” series. The workshop runs 9-5 on three consecutive days, and the participants are twelve high-achieving high school students. I welcome recommendations from this community on topics to include.
The “Practicing Professions” series is supposed to expose students to potential career paths. For example, some students will spend three days in the hospital learning about illness, medicine, organization, etc. I have no idea what backgrounds these students will have: I suspect some will know some programming and most will know none. From previous experiences, I also suspect that the participants have no idea how complicated game development really is! I want to expose the students to various facets of the biz, giving them a taste of the art, programming, music, design, and business, but it cannot be pure survey – they will rightfully want something concrete to show for their time.
My current plan is to find an open source game to use as a running example, ideally something the students can easily experiment with and modify. For example, something with editable levels and sprites would be perfect. I have some experience with GameMaker as well, and I may show them that or something flashier like Torque. I would also like to spend some significant time discussing game design, using some tips from Fullerton’s “Game Design Workshop” book.
If the community has any experience to share or recommendations to make, I would appreciate it. This is my first time offering the workshop, and it’s been a long time since I have dealt with this age group.