Making Gamesgames authoring software for educational and creative use

The problem

Players want to create their own games

Existing tools not suitable for children

Media literacy needs to be extended to games

The software

Building conditionality into a simulation package

Based on object manipulation

Creating rule-based and interactive RPGs and action adventure games

The research

Describing a model of game literacy based on game authoring – will cover production, representation, language and audience

Developing the pedagogies that can promote game literacy

Developing an approach to participatory design with children’s technology

Design partners

11-14 year olds in school, after-school and out of school setting

Girls

Children with print literacy problems

Outcomes

•A game-authoring tool within a 3D environment

•A model of game literacy, developing the recent emphasis on digital and media literacies

•A pedagogic model, identifying how such literacies are taught and learned, formally and informally

•A model of technology design

BUILDING ON PREVIOUS WORK

• Sharing Spaces – all narrative, no game

• Playground – all game, no narrative

• Textuality in Videogames: narrative and game systems in RPGs; dramatic engagement

Progress to date

Six-week course in media studies class

Game analysis – developing a language for describing and interpreting games

Group-based game design using loose template

Issues to be grappled with

How to enable extensive, successive re-drafting? How to play with the software?

At what level of granularity should authoring take place?

How should authoring process be sequenced?

More issues

How to provide a framework for game design without unduly restricting authors’ ideas?

How to use genre?

How to design balanced games? How to encourage consideration of player motivation?