An out-of-school computer game design program
Welcome to the online home of Game Maker Academy, the program that teaches you how to make your very own video games, simulations, animations, and digital stories. Game Maker Academy offers informal instruction in game design through a network of after-school programs and libraries in the north suburban Chicago area. These pages are maintained and updated by members of the Game Design Club, a community of young designer-programmers who meet at the Warming House Youth Center in Wilmette, Illinois. Visit these pages often to find out when the next series of classes will be offered near you.
August 2010: It's back! From the Commodore USA press release: "In response to an overwhelming demand from former Commodore users worldwide, Commodore USA's CTO Leo Nigro announced today that their new Commodore PC64 will be available for purchase this holiday season. Featuring an exact replica of the original beige chassis Commodore C64, this new addition to our lineup will include an Intel Atom 525 CPU with NVIDIA Ion2 graphics, 4GB DDR3 memory . . ." Read the full story.
August 2010: The Game Design Club hosts another Retro Gaming Tournament on Friday, August 20 between 6:00 and 10:00 pm. We'll offer open play on our collection of Atari, SNES and N64 consoles, and we'll host a bracketed Super Smash Bros tournament for cash prizes. We'll also announce the winner of the Club's summer game design contest, and we'll take part in the Warming House's Friday barbecue, so don't forget to bring your appetite!
August 2010: Ricarose Roque, a friend and supporter of Game Maker Academy and the Game Design Club, was recently credited in Dr. Dobb's Journal for her research which formed the basis, in part, for the new Google App Inventor coding blocks paradigm.
July 2010: Make Magazine's editor Dale Dougherty interviews Steven Levy about the 25th anniversary edition of his book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. Watch the interview.
June 2010: Lance Fortnow is a faculty member at Northwestern's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, where he focuses upon computational complexity among other areas. We recently came upon this blog post in which he describes his youthful fascination with gaming and game design. Read "The Story of Ribbit."
April 2010: The club celebrated its 3rd birthday by hosting an exciting, fun-filled retro gaming tournament in the Wilmette Public Library auditorium. Over 30 participants (including dads and moms) played Atari, SNES, and N64 games on the original vintage consoles. In addition, we held a computer game trivia contest and served all-you-can-eat pizza to the hungry gamers. To top it all off, we served a delicious birthday cake baked for us by our friends at TAG's Bakery in Evanston, IL. Winners of the bracketed N64 tournaments and trivia contest took home $25 gift cards from Game Stop and Borders Bookstore. Thanks to everyone for a memorable night of gaming, learning, and celebration! For more info about the event, visit our Competitions page.
April 2010: Read the inspiring article Are You Ready for the Renaissance? by Jeffrey Popyack (PDF file).
March 2009: Game Design Club featured in the March 2009 issue of Computers in Libraries. Read the article.
May 2008: Scratch and Game Maker programs featured in the May 2008 issue of American Libraries. Read the article.
January 2008: Programming: the new literacy?. Read the article.
