Slashdot Mirror
Nobody Gets a Tan at Video Game Camp
theodp writes "Kids at NYU's Intensive Video Game Creation are trading open lakes, green mountains and plentiful daylight for air-conditioned classrooms in the city. Those attending the $5,125, five-week camp - all guys aged 15 to 20 - will use the Center for Advanced Digital Application's facilities to learn the techniques behind Doom, Quake and Madden. It's the first summer camp for game builders on the East Coast. Last year, WA-based Digipen held its first video game creation camp in California, and the University of Illinois hosted one for girls."
Perhaps programming should be turned into a game! Give the programmers a specific task, and then give ranks based on least code, fastest running, most clear, etc etc... I have tried programming games. I can vouch that playing the end result (which, oddly, I've never produced) is much more entertaining than programming it for most people. People who program games don't usually say "well, I've programmed it. That's enough for me, I'm not going to play it." I think part of the attraction is playing the game that you coded/helped code and seeing what you actually did.
I'm a little confused as to why the camps are either all boys or all girls. The only reason I can come up with is limited lodging, but personally I'm leaning more towards the teachers being afraid of women.
Bugs are just features that have been fixed.
the camp at Michigan State University.
Honestly, there are easier, cheaper ways to get experience at actually making games. While sometimes they lack the urgency or the structure of commercial projects, open-source projects can be a good way to gain experience. They don't cost five grand to work on, and you can experience some of the structuring of how tasks are assigned.
Using the Managed DirectX Library in C# or VB.NET is super-easy.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.