Games and Play: developing software production tools for young people to create their own computer games

Presenter: Caroline Pelletier
Discussants: Diane Carr, Mark Levene, Martin Oliver

How can we enable people to become producers of computer games and not just players? In recent years, user-friendly tools to create websites, edit video, and manipulate digital images and audio recordings have become widely available, making multimedia production part of our everyday lives and ways of communicating. To date, no such tool has been available for making computer games, which remains a technically specialist activity. This seminar will present research from the ‘Making Games’ project which is developing a software prototype to enable young people make computer games that are as satisfying to play as the ones they buy off the shelf. The educational arguments for creating such a tool will be discussed, and there will be a demonstration of the software and student-made games.

The three discussants will comment on how the issues raised in this project might be re-framed from the perspective of their own disciplines and research interests.