Digital Game Design Camp – What to Expect
Welcome to the Digital Game Design Online Camp at BCIT!
I am very much looking forward to meeting all of you in camp, and getting to know you as we have fun creating and gaming together!
Your Camp Leader
To introduce myself, my name is Erica and I am a BCIT instructor, certified teacher, and award winning storytellers, as well as a gamer. I am also a digital nerd, and love to tinker and experiment with building new things and new ways of telling stories.
Gaming Tech
Elementari will be our main game development platform, as it’s been developed for kids to teach them to code and think creatively in order to animate stories and build games. Through my classroom account, the campers will be able to continue to build games throughout the year. The campers will also be introduced to a new playful meeting space called Skittish, where we will be able to meet as animals of their choosing, and the campers will be able to build their own game development parks and meet with one another for some collaborative game building, as well as to play some virtual playground games.
In addition, we will also use Zoom as a video meeting space, and the campers will be introduced to some other online game development technologies that can be utilized without causing computer issues.
For those that are keen on learning Unreal Engine and Unity, I will be creating some kid friendly tutorials in building with those platforms for my nephew, that the campers will have access to during the year to work through from home with one of the adults in their world to help them troubleshoot through any of the software issues associated with. These will be delivered to your camp email sporadically throughout the year.
The Week at a Glance
This week I am looking forward to exploring different aspects of digital game together, as we create and play games together. Below is the Week’s Schedule:
- Monday – Game Design Bootcamp
- Tuesday – Basic Coding and Game Building with Elementari
- Wednesday – Digital Game Design Potpourri
- Thursday – Escape Room Extravaganza
- Friday – Game Dev Challenge and Showcase
A Typical Day
While each day is unique, the typical shape of each day involves:
- 9 – 9:30 am PST / noon – 12:30 pm EST : a group game in Skittish or Zoom session
- 9:30 am – 10:30 am PST / 12:30 – 1:30 pm EST : an interactive session with Erica teaching the technology / gaming principles and setting out the day’s challenge
- 10:30 am – 11:30 am PST / 1:30 – 2:30 pm EST : creating and taking on the day’s challenges with Erica available on Zoom and Skittish for any strategy and troubleshooting one-on-ones
- 11:30 am – noon PST / 2:30 – 3 pm EST : time for everyone to share what they’ve been creating that day with each other over Zoom.
Once in the online camproom, campers will find the day’s schedule, Zoom and Skittish links, tutorials to help them as they create, and discussion boards for chatting and sharing with one another. The Zoom and Skittish links will also be emailed to everyone.
Logging in on Monday
Register for an account on this site, via the button below.
Once registered here, we will email you with access to the secure camproom here. (Don’t fret if you do not receive this right away, as humans set this up. It is not automatic, so we will send you access, once we see that you registered on here.) Any problems, send Erica an email at ehargreave[at]my.bcit.ca.
See you in camp on Monday August 16th!