Looking for some guidance

Digital Brilliance Hour

Digital Brilliance Hour

Active member
So as a few of you probably know. I'm fairly new here, and I'm not necessarily an active talker like that. It's not that I don't want to be, though. It's just that due to just life, I'm not always able to be active on the internet. I just don't want to seem like I only want attention and not pay it to others, because I do. I'm just not as vocal about it just due to life.

Now that the preface is out the way, I have a real question where I'm looking for guidance as even though I've been a software engineer going on 17+ years, you guys are more familiar with OpenBOR and beat em ups to where I don't have the genre to a science like that.

In case you didn't know, I teach a 10 week after-school program(once a week) about software development in general, but focus on game development as it's a topic that youth are able to focus on more. The students are typically disenfranchised, coming from the same beginnings I came from. My way of giving back to the community and providing different ways of channeling your energy in positive ways that can bring about change in big ways. In the class, I focus on building character, confidence, and brilliance into the mind of our youth. They learn people skills, like how to work with a team, they learn how companies work as they go through the same experiences as one would have in a software company. So while the development plays a big role, it's not really the only focus. The focus is more about them starting something from scratch, figuring out hidden talents, and working together to create something they never dreamed they would be able to create. So, when these teens complete something, it may not be super polished, or ready for primetime, but it's something that they can say they were able to do, and even decide to continue working on. Because there's only 10 classes, it's not like we spend every class working on the game. They first have to get their development centers setup(everyone doesn't have a computer, so we have to figure out ways to have people share and such. That probably takes almost two classes to get everyone setup and familiar with other tools that they use to work as a team. Like program management tools, agile software, and Git repos. A totally new concept for them that they are learning from scratch, so I have to be mindful of that. They don't FULLY get acclimated to those things until maybe week 4 or 5 where we can actually work in class on autopilot. So really, it's only 5 or 6, 2-hour days that they have to actually take an idea, scope it out, and build something from it. So when I see the end result, I'm always looking at the journey and not always the end result. Which is why I try to get feedback on these games, so that I can help make either the next class's game or help them update a current  game to a better experience. I'm always trying to figure out ways to speed up certain aspects of the OpenBOR process, so that more can be spent on tweaking and polish.

So my question to you is, can I ask for you guy's guidance and input on how I can take 6 - 7, 2-hour classes, and conk out something where the majority of you say, "HEY THIS IS AWESOME AND I WANT TO SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT THIS FOR THEIR EFFORTS!!". Because I'm going to continue putting in work until I can get people to say that about what these kids are able to do. I don't mind harsh criticism as long as it helps in the betterment of more polished products.

Any suggestions from anyone? Am I a fool for trying to do this? Is this the wrong place for me to expect this kind of thing? Anything helps. 
 
Unfortunately you're not gonna make something awesome in less than 20 hours and most of "us" here are not going to be impressed by what kids make, but the whole idea of awesomeness is something I don't think should be your goal for the kids, like you said, helping the kids find there hidden talents is awesome in itself, the good thing about making a game is it allows you to be creative in many aspects, making music for stages, drawing sprites for characters, coding it all together, in 20 hours you can be on the path to awesomeness, so maybe structure how you teach the class, find first if anyone is good at music or art or even like to do it, get them to tap a beat on the desk, record it on your phone but that beat in the game, get them to draw stick figures on a piece of paper, turn them into sprites and but them in the game, or have a decent complete game, break it down into pieces and have them put it back together like lego, it all depends I guess, but don't have the focus be about anything other than inspiring confidence in the kids and making them want to pursue a talent further, it's hard because kids feel great when they get praise but I feel 20 hours is not enough time, it's definitely enough time to make openbor enjoyable though, if you yourself could build 1 stage for different genres of game, for example, 1 level for a platformer, 1 level for a beat em up, 1 level for a shoot em up and get them to improve the game by adding or taking away, every week a different genre, you might get better results to show your bosses, 5 weeks = 5 different games that could be built upon, that's pretty awesome I guess.
 
So nsw25, yeah maybe in the fall, I'll incorporate that into the course, where I have the one of the students(who's role is maybe for social media) come on here and ask questions about the progress, to get feedback from people. That's a great idea. It'll also give them experience being social with guidance.

danno so are you saying that unless the games knocks people's socks off, they won't really see the importance in uplifting the students spirits? I'm not saying to lie to them haha or give participant trophies, but I just don't think the games that they've been able to do are so low end and unenjoyable like that. They may not be super polished and can stand to have some tweaks, but they are not terrible either.
 
Actually, nsw25  that's what we did, though. We did probably 50% character creation and 50% scripting. Like there are aspects that were coded on that aren't available out of the box. But the people focused on the backgrounds haha. And the last time, we tried to do a smaller game with 3 stages, but then were told it was too short. I honestly would rather do 1 - 3 super polished stages myself, and that's probably what I'll do next time, unless the next class would rather polish what this session did or something like that.

As far as the interest in OpenBOR, yes there are kids who are interested who learned from last year to help with this past session. And there are a few in this past session who want to learn more. But also keep in mind they use my account right now, but will be getting their own soon. You still have to go around the parents on these types of things..

As far as them continuing on themselves, that what they will be doing now and have done. But it's not always cut and dry like that. Some kids just like the idea of being able to create something, some kids want to actually learn to be a developer, and some kids are there to have something to do. I have encourage kids to come on their own, and they have. So far what people are suggesting, we already do. I think the problem is also people's tastes on what people consider good. Everyone isn't always able to keep the game up after the program due to other things their families might be doing and such. Have you guys ever taught kids and dealt with parents before? It takes a delicate approach. Especially with COVID still going on.
 
Oh ok cool so you understand then haha

So yeah, I totally agree with the fundamentals mentioned and such, which is stuff we try to do. There's other smaller details that it takes too long to get into that I also have to consider as well, though.

I just want people to be proud of the kids when I post something is all. I can never fully go over everything that gets done, but I promise you most of the obvious stuff actually gets done. This game probably would've been even more impressive(although it's impressive to me, even if no one else can see what they were able to accomplish and I shouldn't have to sell that idea) if we were able to have class in person like planned, but that didn't happen, so we had to do what they had to do.

Again, your help with the backgrounds was super helpful and when we do the fall, like I said, I'll incorporate more of having them ask questions themselves more. but these kids nowadays aren't as devoted like I am.. They require a little more handholding then I did. And if I'm not on top of them, I can't always trust that they'll get stuff done on their own, which is why we do most of our work in class together. And it's not that they aren't interested, it's just they aren't as driven like kids back in the day.
 
danno is forgettin that class is multiple people, yeah it would be hard to do something fun and unique without knowing actual mechanics of the engine or being a coder knowing exactly how you would program physics by yourself , you can do game in 14 hours, it is very possible to make decent level or 3 in that amount of time by yourself.3 people working at the same time means about 3 times faster progress, so its not really 14 hours but now its 42.
It might be possible that none of your students will follow when you will complete the game and it might not spark any career in the future, but we also cant blame teachers for  life choices o students but as you said, its not about that, just remind toursellf how many hours you spent in school doing stuff oyu dont care about now and its just nature of schooling system, it might spark some interest sometimes.
We dont really know what are your expectations or expectations of your superiors.
People if they really want to do something, they do overtime work at their home, not only in class, and this is how you will recognize which student is worth more of your time.
So..
1st part is designinng basic stuff, how many playable characetrs, how many types of enemies per level, bosses , so you dont have to waste time figuring something out mid-way.
Of course sometimes, when youre experienced enough, you can basically design some character, animate and throw him ingame, experiment and create first game mechanics this way that will serve as template for other characters.Cause sometimes its hard to go from piece of paper to actual ingame mechanics without even playing, testing and tinkering.
I dont know about others but most of mechanics in my games were made by playing the game and adjusting first character, then he served as template, also enemies are made similar way, then you switch up graphics, make different looking attacks, walking speeds, trying to keep each enemy unique is best.
It would be good idea to show other beatemup games as examples/inspiration.
Maybe do some pseudo voting for them ,assign group to create one character, another group to create second character etc.id say coding - one guy, graphics-1 guy maybe 2 guys, sounds one guy.
But its jus me guessing , im not really sure what you expect from us, some sort of plan how to organize students with their tasks so its mostly automated after a couple hours of votes and agreements ?
Maybe youre asking " how to make a game so its succesful and everyone is praising it", oh even big companies make flops, you cant really predict that.
You can make it at least bug free and get offsets , velocities right,colors right.
Also programming , makign the game is not really appreciated that much even by players themselves, i have no clue about names of most programmers or graphic artists of the games i played a lot of times, its just how it is, if you want parents to see how their kids work on their game, maybe do a presentation with some documented material like short videos from class, i dont know how you would show that off to the parents without actually showing it.
We as consumers, players, we have no idea who did waht in our favourite games, who did what attack or coded what physics, we get just vague credits like graphics - john wayne , music - none wayne, programmers - elvis and john lennon.But we dont really know and cant praise them for anything particular , some interviews sometimes get into that sometimes.
 
nsw25  and bWWd  I understand what to expect now. And to be honest this is how I approach class, just so you know.

I introduce them to the concept of what beat em ups are, because some of them have never heard of the genre. Then we spend a couple days playing some decent examples, like Streets of Rage, Final Fight, Alien Vs. Predator, .etc. Just so they can get a feel for what the excitement that kind of genre gives when playing. Once they get that feel, we split the class up into subteams(Coding Team, Design Team, QA Testers, Social Media, Executive Producer, .etc) based on their interests. Some of them don't really know what they want and start finding things out about themselves throughout the class. Some people try multiple teams to get a feel for what each of them do. And yes, that's correct, bWWd. I don't expect all the kids to want to code a game from scratch when they leave my session. But what they do get out of it is just confidence that they can start something and finish it. And a lot of these kids have never been responsible for starting and finishing something like that. What they learn as a team can be applied to multiple walks of life, so that's what I'm really giving them. We plan out the game, everyone throws out ideas on a board, and then we vote on the ideas and stockpile the ideas with the most votes to then discuss a concept from the ideas with the most votes and build from there. But every step of the way, we were discussing ideas, features, .etc. Then we focus on building out those features. The design team decides the art direction using ripped assets out there, mugen characters, and other OpenBOR game assets. We try to include all three so that people get experience in each of those methods. What I will incorporate next semester is having them post concepts that we build periodically each class, and we'll go over any replies and suggestions in the next class. That way they can also see how this community works, so they'll know how to come back to the forum if they choose to on their own. That's my biggest takeaway from the conversation.

Yes, what I really wanted was for the community to really just get on board since someone is using this tool as a base to their curriculum to teach inner city youth that there's another path for them that they wouldn't always have access to. What I really wanted was for people to just share and be happy for what the kids were able to do, because it's not like the games have been poorly done. They may not be perfect, but far from horrible. So, I was looking for a balance of giving criticism to keep in mind for the future, and also giving some shine to their work. That's what I was looking for. And my question was really based on what it is people require of me for people to want to do that. TBH, I really hate being on the web, even though I'm a web engineer. Perhaps because I'm so close to how the web works and older, being on the web isn't the same or as exciting as like 10 years ago. So for me to even post something is already hard for me. and when I don't feel like people are appreciating what I see happening, it puts me back into hating the web. I know I have to for the kids, though.

But yeah, this conversation definitely helped, and now I know what I must do. People will catch on when it's time. :)
 
confidence that they can start something and finish it.
Click to expand...
Some of us have multiple unfinished projects, also there are  cases with actual released games that werent finished and they release patches for these games later so it snot really that simple but also cant serve as an excuse to work without any plan.But do remember that even biggest of the biggest guys released finished but unpolished product .
Best You can do is stick to the plan, dont do more than planned in the middle of production, do it only when you finished early.
I think playing games for too long is not helping that much, id spend just one day on it and let them analyze the games while playing, note things down, so they figure out how many attacks they need , how many pain animations and all that.
There are some ways to make work faster, palapply tool for example helps me a lot to convert a lot of frames to correct palette.
Also  openborstats tool is nice for editing characters quickly.They can do it with text only, but visual feedback is important.Most engines have it so  why not use it, sure you can also code entire website in notepad, but nobody cares, time is $.
 
bWWd said:
confidence that they can start something and finish it.
Click to expand...
Some of us have multiple unfinished projects, also there are  cases with actual released games that werent finished and they release patches for these games later so it snot really that simple but also cant serve as an excuse to work without any plan.But do remember that even biggest of the biggest guys released finished but unpolished product .
Best You can do is stick to the plan, dont do more than planned in the middle of production, do it only when you finished early.
I think playing games for too long is not helping that much, id spend just one day on it and let them analyze the games while playing, note things down, so they figure out how many attacks they need , how many pain animations and all that.
There are some ways to make work faster, palapply tool for example helps me a lot to convert a lot of frames to correct palette.
Also  openborstats tool is nice for editing characters quickly.They can do it with text only, but visual feedback is important.Most engines have it so  why not use it, sure you can also code entire website in notepad, but nobody cares, time is $.
Click to expand...

yep, all tools mentioned were used. Again, I think it's more about people's preference of what they like in games. I promise I am doing all of the obvious stuff haha

Like I said what's really helping me from this thread is including more feedback throughout and not really worry about other people's preference anymore, because Ogre's Mayhem definitely included everything you all have said. And make the game small enough for it to be polished to be self explanatory.
 
Hi Digital Brillance Hour, bWWd and nsw25 advices are wise and you can follow them. Here are some suggestions:
- You've got about 20 hours, so the best is to limit to 1 level, 1 playable character and some obstacles/enemies. If your students wish to continue their projects they can come here for some help (if they need).
- They should think in which small project they wish to work and how it's possible to realize it.
- It can be interesting to know what are the students profile: do they like writing and telling stories, drawing, coding, composing music... They can after team up and working on the subject they like the most.
- Everyone must know how to create the game first in mind and in the paper, what is the main goal of the game and what kind of gameplay they wish.
- You can maybye prepare a simple project with a basic stage and character in order to gain some time and any student can see how it works.

Making a good game takes a lot of time and you can already tell them that 20 hours is not enough to finish this, just learning the basics ;).
 
As for parents, id show them this:
35VN1.jpg
 
I believe it's like any other hobby. You have to balance everything correctly. When I was asking questions to someone who works in the industry he said you have to know when to pick up the controller and when to lie it down. When I expressed interest in creating games he told me don't try to stay in your chair all day and try to  live out of a snack machine. In many ways video games can be beneficial. I admire the art of the graphic drawers and animators. Story telling. The logic of programming. No one could ever tell me after playing a Metal Gear Solid game and watching all the cut scenes and themes that go into it that it wasn't just a work of art it's a science.  and the reasons I have good hand eye coordination is due to my playing video games. I always tried to find my own strategy to playing each title that I liked. I am a life-long gamer, not just a button masher.
 
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