We went with an active warmup in the outdoor/undercover space, with elements of cumulative rules and patterns - i forget what the activity is usually called, but it's that thing where the participants get into a circle, then one by one, going around the circle, the participants have to perform an action, but add a new action, developing a sequence that grows after each subsequent participant adds their action.

The kids had a lot of fun with this, some of them coming up with quite the formidable dance routine! The activity was intended as a simple exercise in rules, patterns, and collaboration. Somewhat preparing them for thinking about game mechanics and rules for their board game project.

We started our board game design project officially today, with the first step: research! I set the students up with some very basic introductory concepts to board game design, then posed the question; what is fun? I like to ask this question in the context of game design, because, of course, games are meant to be fun! So to start our research off, I set the students up with my game, Bin Off. I asked them to consider what elements they enjoyed, and what they didn’t, by way of getting them to think about what they can include in their game that might be fun.

Aside from them enjoying playing the game, they got really into specifying the points during the game where they had fun, and where they didn’t. Beyond that, they also came up with ways that they could have more fun, if certain additions or adjustments were made.

Pulling out the scrap paper from last week’s reflection activity, the students were tasked with writing a creative habit and drawing an animal on these small bits of scrap paper, then sticking their creations to the Creative Community wall. One idea behind this was that, last week they drew habitats for animals, so this week they do the animals. Additionally, the aim is to ensure they continue to use the same collection of scrap paper for the remainder of the creative schools program, so that they learn to draw smaller and more concise designs, rather than use entire pages (this will also help us fit all their drawings onto the Creative Community wall!).

We’re a little concerned that the games we’ll get from the students may be too similar - too many card based games, or monopoly clones. To that end, I will plan out a few template games, which use some other games (not monopoly, UNO, or… snakes and ladders) as reference material for their design.

The students are still very excited to make their game. We’re eager to keep them on a structured planning path, to ensure they don’t go overboard with mechanics design, and end up with a completely broken game. 

My design philosophy around making games requires plenty of research; playing games. So the students will be ‘tasked’ with playing lots of games between now and the time I next come in! Although, we have asked them to continue considering what is fun about the games they play, and the things they do in other parts of life too. Understanding what they enjoy helps them incorporate that into their board games they’ll be making!

Those cardboard boxes will be coming in from parents over the next few weeks, but we’re trying not to ask them too early - partly because the classroom doesn’t have that much storage space, but also because we want the students to continue planning properly before they dive into cooking up half-baked prototypes.

We’re looking at having our Creative Schools showcase on the 4th of September, where we invite parents and wider community into the class to see the board games the students have developed. In time for this showcase, we’re hoping the students will be able to create some ‘How to Play’ videos of their games, teaching new players about the rules, but without too much input from the students themselves (as in, the students should be able to setup the video in front of the new players, and very few extra rules need to be mentioned).