Tuesday and Wednesday the students of the EduMais Summer Camp Educational Game Design Course started with the Story writing and storytelling workshop. Every day the teachers prepare the groups and the course of the days to come. Most of the teachers are former students of EduMais themselves. Some of them are even ‘born’ at the school as they call it. They start at day-care through the entire school career until they reach 18 years. We also welcomed Menno and Jeroen van Pelt – Deen. Who arrived on Monday.

Marcelo Vasconcellos started with a lecture on storytelling and games. The game industry has two camps: the ones that love and the ones that hate stories in games. To be honest stories it’s not my cup of thee, but I know for many many people it is a big deal. I comfort myself with the knowledge that even Angry Birds originates from a Finish saga – that it has a story – and that hundreds of million people love to play it!

After Marcelo’s workshop we split the groups into a story writing class and a story telling class. A good narrative comes of course with a perfect fitted design. Ying and Yang. This also counts for the teachers. Marcelo and Flavia monitored these two days as a couple in perfect harmony with the other teachers and students. Incredible to discover the silence as the classes moved along and the students fully concentrated on writing and art. 

Don’t forget to play! With playful power breaks that we have introduced in between the classes the kids could physically drain the energy and focus on something totally different. And of course we changed the rules of the game: in this case: Dodge ball. Two camps fighting each other with a ball. What you will end up with is a complete nuthouse.

Students are awesome. So nice to discover that students who think that could not create art in writing and drawing actually do. Not if they are taught right but if they are coached right. Menno Deen, Flavia Garcia de Carvalho and Marcelo Vasconcellos are wizards in unlocking students views and talents.

The EduMais Summer Camps are all-inclusive. Literally and figuratively. No one is excluded and the food, beverages, and entertainment are all in. Good for the students, good for the teachers, and good for the parents. Parents trust the fact that their loved ones are being taken care of well.

Today we welcomed again an international expert to the Summer Camp: Roy van der Schilden. An experienced game designer, Narrative Designer & Business Director at Wispfire. He perfectly explained the structure of narratives and decision pathways. And emphasized that when you start making narrative games the students should keep things super simple. A story has a start, middle, and end. And a narrative has a situation, a problem, and two or more solutions. Thanks, Roy for your contribution.

Roy van der Schilden

The story writing and storytelling workshops were a blast. The story writing class already started to produce some stories in Twine. Next week the students will put them into practice with actual real game design and playable prototypes. I am so much looking forward to that.

Creating this program requires flexibility and adaptability. The group of teachers and volunteers evaluate every day the tops and tips.

Daily debrief with tips and top.

Let’s finish the week with a yell.

 Art class at EduMais Summer Camp

 

Although Covid has influenced the last day and a half of the week. One of the students got tested positively and that forced the organization to decide that we had to postpone the Summer Camp until next week Tuesday. But flexible as we are Menno and Rob already adapted the course to a program where we still are able to develop playful educational games with students and teachers at PPG – Rio de Janeiro. Also to all students: stay safe and please return. And for Diana: boa sorte!

Written by Jurriaan van Rijswijk – Founder of Games for Health Europe  Foundation with permission published on EduMais Blog