Games Design

This project is based on the pupils’ experience of programming an Adventure Game using a game-making system with built-in speech that has been developed here at St. Vincent’s.

 

The system is content-free so that the story lines and scenarios that are attached to it are limited only by our imaginations!  For example in relation to the genre of fantasy (dungeons and dragons style), when the player enters a particular room, the game software would be programmed to describe the current location (e.g. “You have just entered a dark forest”) and then play an atmospheric sound effect (e.g. wolves howling). An action sequence can then be described (e.g. “The mighty wolf king approached from the trees ahead”. The player could then make some sort of decision or perhaps use a prop such as a sword to affect the outcome. There are many, many scenarios that could be used: Haunted House, Crime thriller or “Who-dunnit”.

 

Once the system is installed, new scenarios can be created and used. They can of course, be used purely for entertainment, or for educational purposes. An example of this is a game that we made based on life in the trenches at the Battle of the Somme – linked to our visit to Ypres.

 

The interest in gaming and games-design that this enrichment project seeks to encourage will hopefully lead to an interest in computer programming and to a thirst for further study!