IndieCade Festival 2018
[Speaker: Mark C Marino] This workshop will demonstrate a brief creative exercise that can be used to engage kids in making choice-based story-games. Beginning with creating characters facing silly or momentous choices, the exercise covers everything a kid needs to begin the process of making their own choose-a-path style game. Best of all, the workshop requires little more than some notecards and a few pencils to get started. However, it will also present a few free platforms available for building playable storygames online with no programming experience. The exercise can be adapted for any age that can read and write and can be used in classrooms or at home. The goal of the exercise is to present an easy framework for creating these games. As a teacher of writing, I have lots of tricks for working smaller lessons about writing into this exercise. The key is to engage children in the most important task: to present a choice that will define the character or their path to come. This workshop also builds on the collaborations I have done with my own two children as we work on the series: Mrs. Wobbles & the Tangerine House, which has been shown at Indiecade and which we're submitting again this year. Although this workshop is aimed at adults, they are welcome to bring their children as well!
