GameMaker Camp at Jardine Middle School June 2014

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short url for this page: http://tinyurl.com/Gamemaker2014

Overview

The GameMaker camp was/is a Middle School summer day camp. The camp is organized such that there are 5 groups of students each day, up to 20 in each group, and each group has 1 hour of GameMaker Camp per day. Camp is 4 days, total. Doing the math, each student has 4 hours of Gamemaker instruction and workshop, total.

Gamemaker 8.1 with additional resources and installer

Day 1

Materials and Setup

  • Sharpies and masking tape for labeling flash drives
  • copies of Day 1 handout

As students come in

  • Turn on computers, log in, stick in flash drive
  • Play game on projected computer

Introductions and Logistics

  • Sean, Mr. Milne

Rules of the Game

  • Class is divided into:
    • Lecture: introduction of new ideas
    • Workshop
  • During lecture:
    • Computers are closed
    • No talking
    • Raise your hand if you have a question
  • During workshop:
    • Help each other, but don't type on each others' computers.
    • If you need help, stay in your seat and raise your hand

Flash Drives

  • put your name on them
  • save everything there
  • There's an installer for Gamemaker and a bunch of extra resources
  • if you have a computer at home, you can work at home! (no Internet required)
  • Copy the installer to the flash drive

First Game

close computers

Elements of a Game

brainstorm what elements we find in a game

Essential

  • image (sprite)
  • rules for image (object)
    • event -> action
  • room

Optional

  • score
  • sound
    • events (bullet sounds)
    • background music

Catch the Clown

Description

  • sprite moves around in a room on the screen
  • if we click on the sprite, we get a point

Files

Day 2

Review

Overall

  1. Sprite
    1. Name
    2. Image
  2. Object
    1. Name
    2. Sprite
    3. Rules
      1. if Event -> Action
  3. Room
    1. Contains all of the objects

Specific

  • 2 Sprites:
    • Main Character
    • Wall
  • 2 Objects
    • Rules for main character

Workshop

Recreate the "Catch the Clown" game from yesterday

Bells and Whistles

  • Alarm
    • Gamemaker Steps
  • Sound Effects
  • Background music
  • Multiple sprites
  • Penalties
  • Changing the sprite show we got it, delay, reset position

Moving your own character

  • Make our main sprite a bad guy (eventually)
  • Setting up the arrow keys to make the character move
  • Avoiding collisions with walls
    • Questions and blocks
  • What happens when we hit a bad guy?
  • Are there good guys?
  • Shooting
    • Using variables

Day 3

Maze Games

  • Use attached sheet as a guide
  • Introduce the "check condition" (if) statement
  • Show how to draw your own sprites
  • Show animation

Attached Files

Day 4

Possible Things to Cover

  • Lives
  • Enemies
  • Coins
  • Timer
  • Treasure Chest
  • Control object

== Make a room for lo

Score based on time

  • Create event: set the score
  • Set an alarm to decrease the score by 10 each second