An educational rationale for a games course. ©Ken Hopkins 2003

Playing Games an article in SecEd a Voice for Secondary Education John Ashford, head of ICT at North Walsham High School, Norfolk.

Education Arcade zooms in on Games in the Classroom MIT

Understanding the effect of media on children and teens American  Association of Pediatrics

Wired News Educators turn to games for help

Video Games in the Classroom Wisconsin Technology Network

Study surprise Gaming can be good for you USA Today study by University of Rochester

The Learning Game - Researchers study video gaming principles that apply to education Wisconsin Technology Network

Turning Games into Learning Machines - by a cognitive scientist. James Gee in the magazine Game Developer v10 #4 Sept2003 pp55,56

GameMaker is a click, point click and drag rapid generator for games. Version 4 was free, but few of the thousands of downloads resulted in a voluntary payment to help the project expand and continue. Now the author requests a registration. It is now still free in its basic form, but comes into the category of nagware. The registered version adds many very useful new features like fireworks and explosions, which the unregistered version does not have. Personally I urge anyone using this to pay the 15 Euros (about Aus$25) to keep this fantastic educational resource moving ahead.

An overview of Gamemaker.

Writing a "gameplay" (similar to a screenplay.)

Making a simple start ( The very basic ideas A sprite picture, its character object, a background, its room and commands to  move the character. [ Part of a paper presented by KH to ECAWA State Conference, Mandurah 2003.]) © Ken Hopkins 2003

Simple character movement. A sprite picture, its character object, a background, its room and commands to  move the character.

The Bear and the Walls (A tutorial first published by Andrea Munro, Sacred Heart College, New Town, Tasmania, with some new extensions) With extensions to the original © Ken Hopkins 2003

        Andrea Munro's original

        Local copy of Andrea Munro's tutorial.

        A scoring extension to "The Bear and Walls" screen dumps from GameMaker 4.3  ©Ken Hopkins 2003

        The same scoring extension to "The Bear and Walls"  but with screen dumps from GameMaker 5.1  ©Ken Hopkins 2003

        Adding new levels after a certain score is reached.

Mutta and the Dingoes (An original complete game development set of documents) ©Ken Hopkins 2003

        Design Document  ©Ken Hopkins 2003

        Creating the bulk of the game Mutta & the Dingoes   ©Ken Hopkins 2003

Adding "How to play" information for any game

       Adding Game Information (4-3 screen dumps) ©Ken Hopkins 2003

       Adding Game Information (version 5-1 screen dumps) ©Ken Hopkins 2004

For any game (5-1 screen dumps) ©Ken Hopkins 2003

        Adding a splash screen

       Using paths for movement

       How to fire a single bullet, and have to wait until it goes before the next is available.

Books related to game design and creation, reviewed by Ken Hopkins 2003

Mark Overmars lecture notes on Game Design (tertiary level)

The Top Twenty Games Publishers, three with studios in Australia and the number of employees they have,.

Gamemaker links

 The official Mark Overmars (the author of Gamemaker) website and main source:

Home:

http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/markov/gmaker/index.html

Download page

http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/markov/gmaker/download.html

Extra resource packs to install

http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/markov/gmaker/resource.html

Documentation including the 120 page manual in Word format

http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/markov/gmaker/doc.html

Tutorials on the various game genres

http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/markov/gmaker/tutorial.html

The games showcase of games people have made with Gamemaker.

http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/markov/gmaker/games.html

Links to relevant pages

http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/markov/gmaker/links.html

Some facts

http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/markov/gmaker/facts.html

Studying game design

http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/markov/gmaker/studying.html

Gamemaker community forum over 10,000 members

http://intranet.woodvillehs.sa.edu.au/kerrbi/g/int.htm