That sounds like a good idea. However my main concern is creating video game is not simple. Compared to drawing art for example, anyone could draw anything with brush, pencil, etc and call the resulted drawing as art. Video game is way more complex than that.
So my first thought is how easy kids could create games in this project?
Yes, that's a very good point. Indeed, creating a video game is not easy. That's why our team doing a lot to make the study process more understandable and convenient. For example, we use Construct 3 as a game engine. This allows our students to learn game development without deep knowledge of coding. Also, we prepared students worksheets (depends on student's age), dictionaries, color rating scales (to identify bottlenecks of the VG study program). Currently, we are about to create a video course to help them learn game development and game design in a more quick and convenient way.
IMPORTANT NOTE. On this stage of VG program, our main purpose isn't a game developing as it is in the traditional sense, but bring back to young survivors the confidence that they still have complete control of their life by developing game worlds and characters, and letting children feel themselves responsible creators. This isn't about getting something done. It's about process. From this point of view, a small challenge is a very useful thing, as it encourages kids to adopt a growth mindset and teach them to see failures as opportunities to learn, grow and do things differently next time.
Also, I would like to add that, some parents were asking our mentors something like: "Is it possible to get a finished game at the end of the course?". Actually, yes and no. No, because our students have very different tech background. They can work as a group of students, but not as a team of developers. That's why we teach them the basic knowledge of game development. After our course, they will be able to create their own game by themselves. Yes, because we are working on additional classes where a group of kids will be working on developing some particular game. We are form believers that in the nearest future, we will publish the very first game developed by our students on the VitaGames itch.io page.
Thanks for the answer.
My next questions are:
2. Do you group students so they work together in creating video game(s)? or do you focus on having students create game alone?
3. Do you give directions to students on what to create or do you let them create anything they want (be it garbage or messy game or good game)?
I would like to make it clear, that a video game as a finished thing isn't the goal of the program. As I already said above, it's more about process, then a result. Because of different tech background and ability to work, we don't always get a finished product at the end of the course. More often it is just a project with interactive main character, BG, some obstacles, and enemies with simple AI. That's it.
Well, about team work. I'm glad you ask this because team work is a very important thing in order to increase children's social skills and self-confidence, and help them to develop into happier adults. All our students working in groups depending on their ages. Average group size is 6-8 persons.
Your second question is about a developing direction. Whether it is predefined or not? It is predefined, but only partially. The only things we predefine are a game genre and some assets. Everything else is absolutely depending on our students' will and imagination.
