Category Archives: Game Design

Steve Isaacs teaches video game design and development to middle school students in New Jersey, and has been recognized as an ISTE Outstanding Teacher this year. Here he shares his experience in developing a curriculum in game design at his school, and offers tips for educators interested in doing so at their own schools.   When I started teaching at William Annin Middle School (WAMS) in 1998, I offered an after school computer club that focused on Game Design and…

As a member of the Support Team for the National STEM Video Game Challenge, I often receive many emails from students looking for guidance, such as a recent request from Yoel in Dallas who was looking for tips for young game designers thinking about entering a game for the 2016 cycle. Based upon my experience as a professional game designer and a screener for many of the STEM Challenge game submissions, I thought I’d share my personal recommendations with all…

Since releasing their first Nancy Drew adventure game, Secrets Can Kill, back in 1998, Her Interactive has inspired thousands to pick up a virtual magnifying glass and take on the role of amateur detective—including 2015 STEM Challenge winner Olivia Thomas. Based out of Bellevue, Washington, the Her Interactive team has produced over 30 first-person mystery games in the last 18 years. This month, they launched Nancy Drew: Codes & Clues, aimed at introducing early learners to coding and STEM skills. To…

I don’t quite know when it hit me. Maybe it was when the man in black let me through the gates. Maybe it was when I walked past parking spaces that were reserved for people anyone would recognize. Maybe it was when I was standing at the threshold of a large white house with no escort except for my chaperone. But it wasn’t just a white house. It was the White House. My pass card? A video game. It was…

We’re thrilled that Olivia Thomas, who won last year’s 2015 National STEM Video Game Challenge in the High School Gamestar Mechanic category, is attending this year’s White House Science Fair. This is the sixth and final Science Fair of President Obama’s Administration, with more than 130 students representing 30 states who have won a broad range of (STEM) science, technology, engineering, and math competitions. This is an incredible honor both for Olivia and the STEM Challenge, which was inspired by President…

Almost every child in the United States plays video games—91% of children ages 2-17, according to NPD. But how many kids make their own video games? I could not find any reliable statistics. Nowadays, one barely needs to write a line of code in order to build a video game because there are so many platforms that make the process simple. Gamestar Mechanic, Unity, GameMaker, and Scratch are probably the most popular. Each one involves a different amount of complexity…

Several years ago, Museum of the Moving Image presented an exhibition called Spacewar! Video Games Blast Off. This was nothing new for us. We had done exhibitions about video games, featuring playable games in the Museum’s galleries, many times before–we presented our first such exhibition, Hot Circuits: A Video Arcade, a year after we opened in 1989–and video games have been featured in our core exhibition for nearly a decade. But Spacewar was notable, in part, for commemorating the 50th…

The entries are in for the National STEM Video Game Challenge, and our expert judges have been busy playing video games! This year we’ve received more than 4,000 entries in the following categories: Gamestar Mechanic, Gamemaker, Scratch, Unity, Open Platforms, and Written Design Documents. The STEM Challenge has hosted more than 35 game design workshops across the country for youth and educators. The energy at these workshops was amazing—read more about a youth workshop that took place at the Science…

In an education setting, video games are often dismissed as mindless entertainment. This was the opposite in the National STEM Video Game Challenge Workshop hosted at the Science Museum of Virginia (SMV), where Barrie Adleberg and I helped students to critically think about the mechanics of a video game and apply them to their own passions. Students from all over Richmond filed into one of the Museum’s classrooms; they were clearly excited to find out what a video game design…

The fourth National STEM Video Game Challenge is well underway this year, with students from middle school and high school programs across the country creating their own video games. We can’t wait to see the results of their hard work as the submissions begin rolling in—we’ve always been blown away by their creativity! Game design professionals will present hands-on workshops for youth and staff museum and library professionals across the country with the generous support of our national community program sponsor, the…