Author: Kyle Li

In 8-bit production, students design and make their very own game cartridges for Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It is a fun and efficient way to look at digital game production while building up their perspectives in video game history. We make characters, hack roms, redesign existing game levels, make 8-bit music, program assembly, and build the game cartridge all in one semester. It was a blast.

 

Tablets have rapidly emerged as a powerful new learning platform in the K-12 classroom. With the ever-growing choices for educational apps, many schools who have adopted these touch screen slates are reporting impressive results in terms of improved student participation and innovative new learning opportunities.

Although tablets have proven to be beneficial, several key tradeoffs with the current generation of tablet devices have surfaced. While tablets are ideal for consuming media, teachers have noted that they would like more ways for students to write and work creatively on their tablets. Tablets to-date have also been limited in their multitasking functionality creating problems for students that have grown accustomed to running numerous applications simultaneously.

This semester I am teaching a new course I designed with Ramiro Corbetta called Code Play. It is an introductory course to interactive programming. Students will be looking at programming from the view of game design. Syntax and logic become components of a situated play experience. After the basics, students will be working with small code blocks instead of writing the program from the ground up. Students will be playing, designing, and prototyping games on a weekly basis. The end goal is to help design oriented students to build a library of interactive code snippets to speed up the prototyping process.

Today is the last day of the course, we were thrilled to have Kurt Bieg and Chris Makris, two living indie game magicians (thanks Ramiro for inviting), to join our game fair. I want to thank Kurt and Chris again for their undivided attention through out the fair and their valuable comments for students. Here are some highlights:

Featuring projects:
Wonderdoll is a single player side-scrolling platformer inspired by the whimsical world of Alice in Wonderland by Nicole Del Senno and I-Shin Naomi Lin
Play on Mac: WonderDoll(final)The Weirding Way is a simple shooter game that uses microphone as a controller. Players control the shooter by making low-pitch and high-pitch sounds to aim, and loud and explosive noise to shoot. Taking inspiration from Frank Herbert’s Dune (and David Lynch’s movie), where warriors learn to control their voice as a powerful sonic weapon (watch a clip), and from shooter games from the 80′s such as Asteroids and Galaga, I created this game that results in super fun interactions. by Francisco Zamorano

Cupcake Puzzle Game(without Audio) by I-Chien Wu

by Amira Anne Pettus, WenChing Li, and I Chien Wu, jaw-dropping illustrations finished with a touch of burn tool (literally) Set in a surreal universe with eight unfortunate aliens who constantly put their lives on balancing acts.

	The Collectors by Haitham Ennasr, a 2-player banana trading game with Texas hold em fun!
	ShaDa by arShaan Sarang and Daniel Albuquerque, ShaDa is a game made using processing. For this game, we created our own graphics (except the paper) and our own sounds. The players gets to choose between me or Daniel and the point of the game is to graduate. To graduate you have to beat up three professors. Each level is set up in a different way. For example, one of the levels is designed to look and feel like a space shooter. Play on Mac : Shada Play on PC : Shada
	Semantic Adventures by Mohini Dutta, don’t underestimate the creative power of words!! Also feat. Frodo, Legolas, Gandalf, troll, and Rich Uncle Pennybags, all in one game!
	COOKING SHOOTING by Bryce WilliamsFrying, pan shooter in a culinary crisis. Cook those enemies into delicious dishes with burning missiles! *comes with complimentary boss fight!
	Zombie Sweeper by Maxim Safioulline, zombies raised from the field of mine sweeper. Shoot gun? Of cause, but you have to sweep mines to get bullets!
	SCREAM’EM UP! by Jane Friedhoff, The loudest Kinect shooting game ever! SCREAM TO SHOOT!
	Battle Isthmus by Andrew Knaup, a 4-Player territorial match 3 game. Looking forward to the combo actions!

Drake-o-matic was one of the prototypes made for an old project. It was used to demo different trait combinations and how the physical features will look like on a small and chubby drake. The project eventually went for a more realistic look, but I had great fun making these little things.