School teacher desperately needs info help!

[Expateach]

Hi.
I am a grade 6 school teacher. My students need to make a simple video game which involves shooting but is educational. Their idea is players must answer questions correctly to continue play or get new weapons etc. Can anyone recommend a free very simple software package they can use or a website where you can make such a game? They only have 2 weeks to make the game. Many thanks, a desperate teacher here!

[SuperSonic]

Hello there

I am a grade 6 school teacher. My students need to make a simple video game which involves shooting but is educational. Their idea is players must answer questions correctly to continue play or get new weapons etc. Can anyone recommend a free very simple software package they can use or a website where you can make such a game?

Well, Game Editor is a great place to start

They only have 2 weeks to make the game

Two weeks may not be enough. If it were me, I'd give 'em three. Unless they have a good understanding of file io

Hope that was helpful

[skydereign]

Yeah, with those requirements your students would need to know some things about programming to complete that in two weeks. Though I can make a demo game file that has the question system setup, so they can use that and/or write a tutorial explaining step by step how they can create the basics of the game. It kind of depends on what the goal of the assignment is, but a tutorial and/or a demo file would make the two week deadline quite possible.

[Expateach]

Yeah, with those requirements your students would need to know some things about programming to complete that in two weeks. Though I can make a demo game file that has the question system setup, so they can use that and/or write a tutorial explaining step by step how they can create the basics of the game. It kind of depends on what the goal of the assignment is, but a tutorial and/or a demo file would make the two week deadline quite possible.

I really appreciate that help. Basically their project idea is to make a shooting game but questions would pop up from time to time which would freeze the game. To continue the game, or go to the next level, or get power to make an attack, etc. you would have to answer a question correctly such as 'What is the capital of Canada? "Answer=Ottawa", or 'What is 8 x 8?" 'Answer=64".
But I see there are many free software packages on the net to download to make video games or websites where you build online. I wonder if there may be a fairly easy point and click, drag and dump video game builder they could use. Otherwise I would really appreciate your demo game file. Maybe they could even change as easy game like checkers where to jump over an opponent and claim their piece they also have to answer a question correctly. For their project they basically have to make an 'innovation'. It's a business project. So they chose to make a violent video game which is also educational. The educational part would be the innovation.

[skydereign]

Well I know of several other pretty user friendly tools that do provide a point and click type interface (gameEditor does in most ways as well) but none I would say have an easy enough learning curve for what you are asking. Unless provided with pretty directed instruction it would take longer than just two weeks, especially as a sixth grade school assignment. Another concern is graphics, but if you're using free online graphics that shouldn't be a concern. gE doesn't provide its own bank of graphics to use, but there are plenty links here that can take care of that problem. For the project itself I assume they'd want the questions to be randomly picked from a large list of them?

And I'd stick to non-board games. Checkers is actually a rather difficult game to make, even when accepting many bugs. Since it's a school project that's too be expected, but the simpler the game the less the bugs will impact it. From the way you described it, it sounds like a class project, is this the case? Also when is/was the project assigned?

[Hblade]

I recommend taking 1 week and teaching them programming through game editor (using the forums and previously asked questions on the forums, just use the search bar to find what you need), then using the next week to apply a 1-level game or possibly a survival, which are quick to make and have endless waves of enemies.

[Expateach]

Well I know of several other pretty user friendly tools that do provide a point and click type interface (gameEditor does in most ways as well) but none I would say have an easy enough learning curve for what you are asking. Unless provided with pretty directed instruction it would take longer than just two weeks, especially as a sixth grade school assignment. Another concern is graphics, but if you're using free online graphics that shouldn't be a concern. gE doesn't provide its own bank of graphics to use, but there are plenty links here that can take care of that problem. For the project itself I assume they'd want the questions to be randomly picked from a large list of them?

And I'd stick to non-board games. Checkers is actually a rather difficult game to make, even when accepting many bugs. Since it's a school project that's too be expected, but the simpler the game the less the bugs will impact it. From the way you described it, it sounds like a class project, is this the case? Also when is/was the project assigned?

It is a project for 3 boys to do. It was given weeks and weeks ago. But the focus of the project is to 'innovate' anything. Some people chose transportation, toothpaste, musical instuments, etc. And there is lots of school documentation they have to fill in and other tasks. A couple of weeks ago they showed me a game they made that looks like the old 'Asteroids' game but last week they don't me they could not put in the educational questions. Which puts them back at scratch. They are learning by themselfe and I am monitoring them. Though they have a mentor as well. The important thing is for them to have a game to show parrents March 3 actually. So it's a little more time now. The quality of the game is not so important as the idea of the game which could then be applied to other games in theory as this is just a school project. Now I'm looking at the free software Platinum Arts Sandbox Free 3D Game Maker but can not download at school. I am also looking at Alice.org where I may be able to have them make a game.

Thanks for the help.

[skydereign]

Ok, the extra time and small group makes things much easier. Didn't think they were aiming for 3d. I can't vouch for it personally but some people I know said platinum arts sandbox is pretty easy to jump into. Best of luck to them.

[Fojam]

if they dont know much about programming, alice would be a good place to start for 3d

[SuperSonic]

The problem with Alice is that it would be hard make a violent game since there is no collision detection. Although I did manage to make a zombie shooter once lol. It was actually pretty fun

But yes, Alice is great for 3d, and Game Editor is great for 2d, but Sandbox is hard to just jump into

Also, here is a list of free game creation software that may be of use: http://www.kaplaneduneering.com/kappnot ... -programs/

[Game A Gogo]

From my personal experience, which isn't much into 3D, it's always a better idea to get started in 2D, because then you get to know the basic of programming and when you move onto 3D, you get to concentrate on the 3D stuff, not on how the script works.

But having said that, my experience will come with the need of programming my own 3D engine in my college.

From what I see, your students are better off playing around a 2D game, not a 3D game. I see it hard for a 12 year old to grasp the required knowledge they need for 3D computation. Which means working with 3D vectors and doing calculations around them, that's 11th-12th grade stuff in Canada. But then again, I don't know if the game engine they will end up using will do all that for them.

But I say this without knowing how much your students knows about the concept of programming. Having started programming in 6th grade myself, I know picking up 3D instead of 2D would of just make me drop any effort of trying to figure it out. I'm pretty sure Game Editor is a decent enough engine for them to accomplish this project, even though it wouldn't be a 3D game, the timeline would suffice enough for them to be able to do something, given they have help in the process.

I say this in the mind that these students wants to continue the process of learning how to program.