How did we get off to a rough start?  Well, the ideas POURED in from the teens.  Yes, yes yes, that’s not a bad thing…but we weren’t ready for this.  Gamers also have this uncanny ability to talk about games nonstop, one thing that I forgot when planning.  So the first session was a lot of ideas and talking about games we like and that was about it.  The lesson plans went out the window.

However, I have to add that there was a victory.  We saw the passion in these teens for video game creation.  They didn’t just come to this workshop to pass time.  THEY HAVE IDEAS AND THEY WANT THEM OUT OF THEIR HEAD.

WEEK TWO: Our curve ball for Week 2 was group work.  It was our attempt to get all these ideas into some kind of cohesive ball and start moving along.  We did a quick analysis of the teens that had attended the workshops and put them into groups.  The teen who loved sport games with the one that loved RPG games?  Yah, that’ll work.  And it did!  Thinking outside the box is something that these teens excel at.  Putting polar opposites together was a fabulous idea that found our two groups coming up with some VERY interesting and solid game ideas (I won’t spoil them for you, we’ve still got a lot of work to do).

Week two ended with a quick pitch, like a TV ad about the games where the teens had to sell us on the idea.  Action, Adventure, and Excitement packed into 30 seconds…and they had us hooked.

Next week, we head out into the wild streets of Portland, Maine to photograph interesting locales and buildings that could somehow make it into our games…