This was an interesting article on student-created video games. The Game Maker workshop was a one-week summer workshop involving 10 secondary students. It allowed the students to design and create their own game stories using the NeverWinter Nights toolset. This toolset was a way to avoid many of the complexities of computer programming while focusing on creating a game narrative. The students all enjoyed the workshop, and a custom toolset, called AdventureAuthor, is now being created to address problems and limitations of the NeverWinter Nights toolset.
Until recently, creating you own computer game has required programming skills and complex math knowledge. Commercial games feature editors to create your own worlds and stories. Students who may struggle with writing or narrative due to apprehension can benefit from creating stories in game environments. Current commercial toolsets can be too genre specific for optimal educational adaptation.
“Additionally, with the decreasing focus on programming skills, at least for designing games within a game-creation environment, computer games can be integrated more tightly with specific domains within the curriculum, for example, literacy and narrative development, the subject of this article [p. 61].”
Many commercial games come with editors that allow players to make “mods.” This eliminates the need for complex programming or math skills to develop 3D games (p. 2).
Educational games must have the same level of quality as commercial games to sustain players’ interests (p. 2).
“They all reported they enjoyed the experience and would continue to use the Neverwinter Nights toolset if they had access to it. They became engrossed in the games design task and it was very difficult to persuade them to stop working and take breaks [p. 65].”
“The AdventureAuthor prototype addresses the limitations of Neverwinter Nights by providing a visual representation to support plot planning and interactive dialogue, as well as guides the user through the game creation process [6]. It will also allow for a broader range of settings and characters with more fully developed personalities [p. 65].”