Project 03: Teaching Children Game Authoring Tools (GameMaker and Squeak eToys)

INFORMATION
Date: 22 – 25 August 2006
Venue: Multimedia Lab 3, UPSI, Tg. Malim, Perak, Malaysia
Intended Participant: 5 children (Age: 9-10 years old)

BACKGROUND
I believe that the children learn to play and play to learn. they are very passionate and motivate when it comes to computer technology. They see computer itself as a toy that belong to them. And one of the computer applications that have the most effect is the electronic games application.

Electronic games are games that are played using games consoles (arcade games, Sony' PlayStation, Microsoft's XBox or Nintendo's GameCube), handheld devices (mobile phone, Sony's PSP, Nintendo's Gameboy) and computer. For this study, the term computer games are used due to the availability of computer in the school and mainly for this research purposes. With computer games software industry representing hundreds of millions of dollar in sales each year, people such as parents, educators, students as well as game designer would be wise to consider the importance of educational gaming. The study will be divided into two sessions ~ playing games and making games.

GAME AUTHORING TOOLS
In making games, I have used two types of games authoring tools - Squeak eToys and GameMaker 6.1. Both tools can be download through their Web site.

In Squeak eToys, I taught the children the most basic tutorial of eToys which is drawing and driving a car, but this time, instead of a car, I taught them to draw two cars and control the cars with keyboard, for red car and joystick (mouse), for blue car.

In GameMaker, I have taught them how to create ghosts that move around randomly in a room, and the player has to catch the ghosts by clicking the mouse. Here, the children felt some new experiences whereby the tool gives them opportunity to set the points and time speed in their game.