Video Game Design/Developers

I've been thinking about this for awhile now. I'm very curious about the structure of your Pathways, if you teach in a Pathway.

Overall what are the courses in your Pathway? What else in your school's ecosystem supports your Pathway, beginner programming class, AP Computer Science, 2d or 3d design classes?

I teach in the Game Design Academy at my school. I teach 2 classes of juniors, Game Design 1, and 2 classes of seniors, Game Design 2. The last 4 or so months of senior year they work in teams in Game Design 2 and make their own game idea come to life and then present it.

It is a Pathway and we are cohorted with the junior and senior social science and English teachers because we are supposed to be collaborating and doing cross curricular things, although in my case this is not happening, in fact, 1 or maybe even 2 teachers is vehemently opposed to video games but admin refuses to move them to another Pathway or out of Pathways entirely, so Boooooo.

Junior students take the following 3 classes. They are in all 3 classes with the same students, it's a cohort.

Game Design 1

US History

English 11 US Literature

Senior students take the following 3 classes. They are in all 3 classes with the same students, it's a cohort.

Game Design 2

American Democracy/Economics

English 12 Eurolit

My school does not have a beginner programming class so most students come to me with next to NO programming experience. Some took CS in middle school, but that's a 9 week wheel with other things so it's not super in depth. Some have done summer camps for programming, but most have no experience. We haven't had AP Computer Science in a few years, but this year we were able to offer 2 sections of AP Computer Science Principles, but we have major budget issues and it looks like the teacher teaching it for 50% of the time will not be able to return next year. We have some basic Media Arts classes but they don't get much into 2d and 3d design that might transfer over to Game Design, they do more sound and video editing and website building, now more with Canva and Adobe so not even programming websites. I guess what bothers me most is that there is nothing related to my Pathway for kids before they join a Pathway in junior year. In my school ALL students join Pathways in junior year so no one is NOT in a Pathway.

In my first year I just thought, ok meet the kids where they are and teach it like a beginner course because they need it. They made some progress and some learned a bit, but when it came time for their Capstone projects, they didn't have enough PROGRAMMING experience to actually make a game you could play. Their presentations were like, here's some art we made, here's the main character, here's a mock up of a boss battle, and stuff like that. Not one group had a prototype you could play. My school and sometimes district makes a big deal out of our Pathways and the Capstone presentations but frankly that year, mine were lame. SO each year since then I've hit more and more programming and technical concepts and their Capstones have gotten better and better BUT I've had to drop more and more art and sound units, so now it's mostly programming. Many students like it but 50% of my students need so much more support to make progress because they are new to programming, it's making doubt if I even want to stay at this school teaching it. It seems like an impossible setup.

My class is popular so I get 35-38 students per class, and I've got 4 classes. Since every student gets put into a Pathway, I also get students who didn't go to the Pathway Fair to learn about what you do in each Pathway, and choose one that more closely meets your needs/desires. So I get about 3-4 students per class like this and when they show up, and it's not all the time, they can't do anything and don't really want to try. If I push more in programming and Github type technical components, even fewer students will be able to do it, or I'll have to slow it down so much, students won't be able to make a Capstone project worth presenting.

I have to admit that after my accident, I am thinking deeply about all this stuff and that's what's causing me to consider what I really want to do. I mean, I get to teach how to make video games, I get to keep learning new things all the time, and I'm pretty high up in the salary schedule, we're a public school, so the situation is pretty nice BUT my school is half-assing just about everything around Pathways that we have to work DOUBLE time get some students to make Capstones worth presenting and inviting community partners to see.

Curious what your situations are like? Maybe I just need to suck it up and persevere. I count 10 more years to retirement, I think I could keep doing it this way, but I'm not sure.

I see where you're coming from, but my question is: what does this look like when pulled off successfully? Is it even possible? Is 2 years enough to take a high schooler from no programming experience to a fully-fledge (if basic) game?

Also, if the idea here is Pathways, it seems like including art in the pathway could take some of the load off of you teaching visual design/improve what you have already.

Is it even possible? Depends on what we are expecting kids to be able to do at the end of their time in a Pathway. I don't expect all students will go on to a career in the games industry, but with enough pre-requisites, all kids can be successful in their time with me. Not all kids need a pre-requisite, some are highly motivated to learn it, but most do need them. My school believes pre-requisites are gate keeping so they have NONE. You could literally sign up for AP Calculus no matter what level your math skills are if you wanted.

It really hit home last year when I had an amazing group of students who worked hard in teams for their Capstone projects and everyone had playable prototypes. Some were more developed than others, but they ALL had playable prototypes. That was the result of really making programming the centerpiece of the class.

HOWEVER, when I had industry folks Zoom into my class and work with different groups on their games, they often found a very lacking Game Design Document and not enough thought put into what the game is and why it might be fun to play. Oh so you say it's a post apocalyptic world, what happened to the old world, how does that impact this new world, are there folks only born into this new world who don't know how things used to be, how does that manifest itself in the game, etc. That's on me because I had to spend less time on those types of things and more on programming.  I have found students work harder and put more of themselves in the game when it's going to be something they can play, they can do a build and send to their friends, put on Itch, etc. ALL parts of game design are important, but I've just seen such lackluster efforts when no one on a team will be able to do the programming parts.

In theory the English teachers are supposed to help with the narrative elements in the games, planning with a GDD, avoiding common tropes etc, but they do none of that. The social studies teachers can help with a history of games, tech that led us to games, what's possible with new tech, etc. The senior teacher has students make a business plan in Economics and he did adapt his project to be the business plan for the team making the game. They do business and marketing plans, an elevator pitch, write out a game trailer and record one, etc, but he's the only one.

I'd much more like other art classes or even a writing class to be part of the Pathway, but that is never going to happen. Since all students in grades 11 and 12 are in Pathways, and all Pathways include English and Social Studies classes, if my Pathway didn't have English cohorted with it, to make room for those classes, there would be no English classes for them, and it's required to graduate. Another oddity is that if you take AP Lit senior year, you still have to take your Pathway English Lit class too because they really HOPE interdisciplinary projects are happening, but very few are, in ALL pathways.

We get who we get because we are public schools, that's fine, I can manage, and thrive. What bugs me most is that we don't have an intro to programming class so students can get a taste of it before entering my GDA. Once they are in, they are in, no Pathway changes, so if it turns out to be something they don't like, or don't have easy capacity to do, they are stuck, and often fail. This happens across Pathways so it's not just me. We are not going to have AP Computer Science starting next year so kids who do find they like programming and are good at it, will have no other class to take a deeper dive into.

Bottom line for me is that 2 years can and should produce students who have a prototype that is playable. It can be simple, it can be small, it can be basic, but we must be able to play some part of it. In the past I had too many kids say I'm making an FPS, then design like 40 weapons you could use in the game and mean looking enemies, but didn't even have a prototype with a player in the world that could move around, let alone equip weapons, fire them, and battle enemies. When the work gets hard if nothing is working it's too easy to quit then.

Anyway, I just think my schools way of doing Pathways really doesn't set students up for success, so I wanted to see how YOUR schools were organized. Maybe my school is run of the mill and I just have to cope and adapt.

It is definitely possible... with the right high schoolers.

I really use my intro class as a filter. Once you get the chaff out and have a room full of the right kids, they can do a lot. There was one kid in my capstone last year with any unity experience and 2 or 3 others that had any programming experience. 

Now that we have a separate Computer Science pathway, I am hoping that changes a bit.

I run into the same issues. I think we have talked about it before, but for everyone else.

I designed my pathway around self sufficiency. I have to assume that no one knows anything aside from playing games when they walk into GD1, I assume no art, no programming, no design knowledge.

Because of this my pathway is really 3 different classes, sequenced in a specific way. In reality, I could do them in any order, but it would not work as well in my opinion.

Tabletop Game Design - My intro is a tabletop design class in order to teach Game Design fundamentals and production processes without needing to teach any of the tech. They make a bunch of group projects centered around different topics in game design. Today they are about to start a unit on Narrative Design, where they aren't actually making a game, but instead are making narrative elements like concept art, story boards, worlds etc. for a game. 

The actual goals of the class are:

1. Teach Game Design Fundamentals like skill, chance, player motivation, balance, play testing, all that stuff.
2. Teach students to be productive while working collaboratively.
3. Get the students who are about Game Dev together and away from the students who are not. Over time, the class gets difficult enough that the productive students start grouping together, because they get tired of carrying their friends.

Digital Graphics - My concentrator is a digital art class centered around making 2d and 3d game assets. We cover some art basics before diving in to animation fundamentals in Aesprite. Then we transition to blender to do 3d modeling and animation. It is a much more co-working class than collaborative like the first one.

The real goals of this class are.

1. Get students used to productive struggle. I put a lot of the weight on them and get them to learn how to work through problems with as little intervention from me as possible.
2. Get students familiar with concepts like rendering, materials, animation basics like keyframes and rigging.
3. Start to get students to figure out what kind of game they want to make and who they want to make it with.

Digital Game Development - My capstone is a semester long course that is both an intro to computer science and an intro to digital development. Students start with a crash course in basic computer science and working with a game engine (currently Unity, might not always be unity, I wrote the course to be engine agnostic on purpose). The students make some microgames to familiarize themselves, then start pre-production on a game, Then start researching knowledge gaps they have in order to make them before spending the rest of the semester working in teams to create a game.

My way doesn't really work for everyone or even most students. It does unshackle the best ones though and by the time we are into the capstone, I am more trying to keep their scopes in check than anything else. That said I have always been surprised by the results I get from students given the compressed timeline they make their capstones on.

My capstone also has an internship attached to it and the first student that took the internship, did get hired to the studio afterwards. I am hoping to expand this part out a little bit.

In my dream world, I would have a 4th class that is the culminating project to expand more time for computer science and engine familiarization in the 3rd class, but I doubt that will ever happen. 

The real thing that I think hurts you is those students being trapped in your pathway. It is bad for you and bad for the kids.

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Brian Bautista k12teacher
Citrus Heights CA
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