Earlier this month, ACM worked with HEON to provide a summer gaming workshop for students progressing to higher education. In this workshop, we challenged students to hone their arts and crafts skills to design and develop a physical game in 40 minutes.
Hosted by ACM tutor Huda Mahdi, the lead Games Development tutor for Further Education, our workshop provided an insight into the different roles of developing video games: from project management to art and design. After assigning roles, the students were able to produce all-time favourite games like Tetris and Snakes and Ladders – all while learning the core process of video game development.
We spoke with Huda Mahdi, who gave us more insight into this workshop:
How was each role utilised?
The project manager of each team made sure they got through the entire process in time, made the team hurry up, and “reported” the milestones they achieved on the chalkboard. The artists drew the visuals; the designers planned the gameplay and made sure the game was fun, while the programmers were the only ones who could simulate game events and make the game playable once the game started.
What were your highlights of the workshop?
What impressed me was how lively and enthusiastic everyone was. The students managed to complete tasks in such a short time, despite not knowing each other very well.
It was great to see how resourceful and creative the students were as they created dice out of paper or made a Trivia game with visuals rather than just textual content.
If you’re looking to learn more about video game development, then you’re in the right place. ACM has several courses on offer that cover every element of game development: from programming to art and business. Plus, if you’re eager to learn video game development straight after secondary school, we have our brand new Game Development Diploma. You can find all the information here.
Can’t wait to get started? Check out our “Level Up” series on YouTube, featuring tutorials from our tutors.
If you want to arrange a workshop for your school/college with us, get in touch here.
