Youth in Portugal participated in the creation of an analogue game prototype, (played it), assisted to the coding process and played the digital game!

Session 11 of MILT in Portugal took place on the 22 of February of 2019 at Lusófona University. It was conducted by Trainer and Game Developer Fernando Manuel Soares, researcher Conceição Costa, and we had the pleasure of welcoming the Game Designer: Andreas Melo to speak to Youth about Game Development basic concepts.

The objective of this Session was to demonstrate dynamically with the students the basic processes of developing a game – Planning, prototype, implementation and Testing. The Session was divided into 2 key moments:

In the first moment, students played through a selection of 9 pre-selected pedagogical, serious and commercial games. Then, Youth guided by researchers and Trainers reflected on the selected games, answering the question “What is a game, and what can we learn from them?”.

On the second Moment, Fernando Soares and Andreas Melo, with the MILT youth participation passed through the process and phases of developing a videogame: planning, prototype, implementation, and testing. Using a simple Game Design Document Template created by Andreas and, a physical prototype was built using chairs, paper, pens, and tables. Then, youth tested the game concept playing the role of “players” and the User Interface objects such as the scoreboard and “Goal!” notifications were emulated with paper and pens. After the concept validation Fernando developed in real time the planned videogame “Simple Football” using Unity 2018.

To conclude the Session, a playable build was uploaded to itch.io so everyone can have fun playing the Milt videogame: “Simple Football”