Alex Repenning (AgentSheets), Tamara Hudgins (Girlstart), Virginia McArthur (Zynga), Ward Tisdale (AMD) and David Gerding (Columbia College) at SXSW Interactive 2012 talk/panel of the "Gaming Tools Kids Want to Use" in Austin. Join the conversation about authorship, identity, creativity, and the tools kids use for developing serious and social games. #SXSW #SXGameTools

1. Gaming
Tools
Kids
Want
To
Use
#SXGameTools

2. Amd Changing the game: program architecture
AMD Changing The Game
Encouraging STEM Education & Careers
Through Game Design With Social Content
Skills for Collaboration & Creativity Alignment with AMD
STEM Careers For All 21st Century Jobs & Partner Capabilities
Game Design Competitions Curricula Advocacy
Educator Online Tools Partner Marketing
Engagement and curricula Participation Communications
22

3. TOOLS FOR Educators
3

4. “programming is hard and
boring”
easy Holy Grail
Conversational
Programming
sense-making
2D game design
semantic
support
AgentSheets 3
3D Game Design with 3D modeling
cognitive
AgentCubes
drag & drop2D Story Telling
game design
AgentSheets 1,2, Alice
Scratch
drag and drop
syntactic
support
cute make iPhone
yummy prime
compute
gross game
hard numbers
dangerous funky
Objective-C,
C++, Emacs Xcode
boring affective exciting

5. http://www.9news.com/rss/story.aspx?storyid=202987

6. Alexander Repenning
ralex@cs.colorado.edu
http://scalablegamedesign.cs.colorado.edu

7. Girls tart
• Founded in Austin in 1997; year-round STEM education programs for girls K-12
• Girlstart After School: largest STEM after school program for girls in the US.
• Thematic, week-long Summer Camp programs, now in their 14th year, in
Austin, and ‘Girlstart to Go’ (CA, CO, MN, NE,WA, TX). 45% scholarship.
• Through our two core programs 48% Latina, 33% Caucasian, 10% African-
American, 5% Pacific Islander, 70% at-risk.
• Through all its direct service STEM education programs in 2011, Girlstart
reached nearly 14,500 girls, teachers, and parents.

8. Girls tart and Video Game Development
• Girlstart’s programs are technology rich at the same time they teach STEM creatively
• Video game development a cornerstone of our work since 2006: Project IT Girl. Game
dev now fully integrated within Girlstart After School / Summer Camp.
• Game development toolbox: so far, there is no one solution. Key features that foster
interest and stickiness: personalization, start-to-finish engagement, connections to real-
world experiences and problems.
• Key takeaways if you are interested in gaining/sustaining girls’ interest: STOP WITH THE
PINK. Bridge the analog with technology. Value your users as creators and authors that
can teach you new things about the tools you’ve developed. Promote collaboration over
competition. Embrace the unique voices of girls. Make it accessible.

9. Rock. Paper. Scissors:
Make it that easy!
Keep it Simple!
•Easy
•Fun VS.
•Addictive
Once you have a CORE Mechanic
•Add new art
•Add new levels
•Add new mechanics
3/12/2012 Virginia E. McArthur Girlstart/Zynga Inc.

10. Deconstruct. Build. Play
Start Analog!
How should you start?
•Pick your Mechanic
•Deconstruct it – Draw out the core loop
•Map out the outcomes
•Build it out of Paper (or user your hands!)
•Play, Play, and PLAY AGAIN!
•THEN, and ONLY then should you ask students to get on the computer and code
3/12/2012 Virginia E. McArthur Girlstart/Zynga Inc.

11. Some additional toolkits in addition
to AgentSheets (which I am going to
use with my kids when I get home).
• Sculptris (www.sculptris.com)
• Squeak (www.squeakland.org)
• Scratch (scratch.mit.edu)
• Microsoft Robotics Kit – Kinect
Cool(www.microsoft.com/robotics
• Kodu (on XBox Indy marketplace)

12. So, you want to make a game.

13. What they want is to make a
copy of a game.

14. Our challenge is to:
• Figure out what they want to
play.
• Help them discover the play of
making games.
• Then help them invert their
creative impulse towards the
service of “others”.

15. Figure out what they want to play.
• They’re going to be derivative. Shake that up
by helping them reflect on what they really
care about – reconnect them to themselves.
• “This I Believe” Exercise
www.ThisIBelieve.org

16. Help them discover
the play of making games.
• Doesn’t have to be a digital anything.
• Prototype in paper. They already know the
tools (paper, scissors, “yummy” paste)

17. #SXGameTools