The Come Out and Play Jam was the first event we Maker Corps Members were a part of. Held at the Park Slope Armory YMCA's awesome facility, kids learned the basics of game design and created a field game that would be played during the official Come Out and Play 2013 Festival on July 15.
While we were mostly documenting this event, we were able to participate with the kids to create two awesome but completely different field games. One was a simple and elegant scalable family friendly field game much like tag, while the other was a complex and strategy based capture-the-flag... but with swords.
This being our first event, I was surprised with the ease with which the kids experimented and started working in designing their games. I won't lie, it was a bit intimidating for me to have the folks from dESIgn put us all in a conference room and explain their goals, expectations, and challenge for the day. Their 10 page game design packet didn't particularly lighten up the business-like atmosphere either. Once we moved over to the courts and got some game props, however, the kids immediately came up with a million ideas. The structured process and strong facilitation helped narrow down and focus on the ideas that worked and the event ended up with two successful and fun games.
The frequent pauses for reflection and commentary seemed to me to be the most effective in leading to developments in the games. If i learned something about game design through this event, it was the importance of testing,
While we were mostly documenting this event, we were able to participate with the kids to create two awesome but completely different field games. One was a simple and elegant scalable family friendly field game much like tag, while the other was a complex and strategy based capture-the-flag... but with swords.
This being our first event, I was surprised with the ease with which the kids experimented and started working in designing their games. I won't lie, it was a bit intimidating for me to have the folks from dESIgn put us all in a conference room and explain their goals, expectations, and challenge for the day. Their 10 page game design packet didn't particularly lighten up the business-like atmosphere either. Once we moved over to the courts and got some game props, however, the kids immediately came up with a million ideas. The structured process and strong facilitation helped narrow down and focus on the ideas that worked and the event ended up with two successful and fun games.
The frequent pauses for reflection and commentary seemed to me to be the most effective in leading to developments in the games. If i learned something about game design through this event, it was the importance of testing,