Snow storms are disrupting our regularly scheduled programs.  A handful of kids showed up for video game class the Saturday after a snow day.  Before I set them loose to design their own games, we spent some time talking about how to explain games to people.  A few didn’t know Pong and most didn’t know Space Invaders, but everyone knew Pac-man.

After we all confused ourselves trying to explain Pac-man with just words, I told them they could use the board if they wanted to.  Each sketch they drew had an important aspect that the other missed: power pellets, blinking ghosts, portals.  There was quite a bit of debate over what Pac-man is and is the ghosts actually kill him or just make him disappear.  I tossed up my own sketch at the bottom to show them that the whole board wasn’t necessary to explain the game.  We just need enough picture to explain the finer points.

A second grader insisted she had a clear and concrete vision and that it would be a waste of time to create a storyboard.  Who am I to stand in the way of a confident developer?  She had hand in the claymation earlier in the year too, so she’s already spent some time storyboarding.

The games they’re coming up with look neat.  The jetpack game actually sounds like something I played back on my 286 forever ago.  We had a 2-axis flight stick that really game the impression that I was flying a jetpack.  I’ve never hooked up a game controller to Scratch (just Scratch boards), but I’ll have to look into that to make their games that much more real.  The anteater game looks funny too.  Last year, one of the students made a rabid rabbit game that was a riot.  She drew all bunnies herself and gave them individual demented looks.  I’m going to upload all the games this time around so that they can email them around to friends and family and show their teachers.