The Serious Game Design Summer School, or the "SGDSS" as it is shortened, kicked off today at the Ada classroom, fifth floor in the TAMK Finlayson campus. The summer school is led by Paul and Maja Pivec and the aim is to have very intensive two weeks focusing on different aspects of game design and game development.

Getting organized

Another interesting thought that came up was that most often educational games are developed by teachers and not game developers, which might lead to bad gameplay in the end product. Making an actual game rather than a tutorial was also emphasized.

First task

After lunch we were given a task. This was about researching the topics of e-health, sustainability and e-inclusion. We were to find out what these concepts meant, how they were already being applied into games and how they could be applied in the future. What this basically resulted in was students coming up with some fresh game ideas such as a game to teach sign language to families with deaf children.

We seemed to be encouraged towards taking into account device possibilities such as GPS and camera technologies. Of course, this kind of novelty aspect has helped many games and apps into success. One of the main points is to indeed  teach us how to make financially successful games as well as making them actually educational, playable and fun.


The official website for the course can be found here:
http://summerschool.engagelearning.eu/