skip to main content

Summary

In this lesson, students will be introduced to this year’s STEM VGC theme and brainstorm game ideas around that theme.

Curriculum codes

Digital Technology: AC9TDI8P08 AC9TDI10P08

Media Arts: AC9AMA8C01 AC9AMA10C01

Design and Technologies: AC9TDE8P02

General capabilities

Critical and Creative Thinking: Generating

Digital Literacy: Creating and exchanging

a young man sitting on ground using laptop

Learning intention

In this lesson, you will discuss the STEM VGC theme and brainstorm game ideas.

Prerequisites

It is recommended that lesson 1 is completed prior to commencing this lesson.

What you need

  1. STEM VGC Theme Sheet
  2. Game Design Document Template (GDD)
  3. Student Work Plan for each team
  4. A whiteboard for recording class ideas (or some other form of display) 
  5. Online access and a display for showing videos 
  6. Elevator Pitch document

Before the lesson

Activities

Introduction (10 mins)

  1. Organise the class into teams (either prepared by the teacher or allow students to choose). Ideally, each team will reflect a range of the role preferences identified in the previous lesson.
  2. Show the class the GDD and tell them this lesson will focus on the Designing: Game overview and Theme sections.
  3. Show students the Student Work Plan and explain that this will help them track their work as they continue to develop their games.
  4. As a whole class, explore this year’s STEM VGC theme by reading through the STEM VGC Theme Sheet and start preliminary discussions with the teams about some initial ideas.
  5. Ask the class to suggest video game ideas based on the theme. Record these ideas on a whiteboard or other form of display. Do not spend too long on this.

    Teacher tip: It might be more efficient to pre-prepare your whiteboard/display with the STEM VGC theme in the centre and some arrows pointing out to idea ‘bubbles’.

Main Activity (25 mins)

  1. Ask teams to brainstorm an initial game concept around this year’s STEM VGC theme. Explain that teams can use the ideas already captured by the class or expand on these ideas/create new ideas. The following brainstorming techniques could be used by teams to generate and consolidate ideas:
    • Rapid ideation: everyone writes down as many ideas as possible in 5 minutes before discussion commences.
    • Round robin: every member of the meeting contributes one idea to the initial brainstorm.
    • Mind mapping: everyone uses the same central idea to generate sub-ideas.

      Teacher tip: More information on these brainstorming methods and others can be found here.

  2. Introduce the idea of an ‘elevator pitch’ to the class.
    An elevator pitch is a brief outline of a game. A typical elevator pitch is 1 or 2 paragraphs OR up to 100 words OR can be delivered in no more than about 30 seconds. It is a summary of a game that includes answers to the following questions:
    • What sort of game is it?
    • What is the game about?
    • How does the game work?
  3. Show students an example of an elevator pitch. 
  4. Ask teams to create a 30-second elevator pitch for a game based on their game concept brainstorm.

Reflection/Sharing Tasks (20 mins)

  1. Tell teams to present their elevator pitches to the class.
  2. Ask teams to consider any changes or additions they might like to make to their own game concepts following the elevator pitches (10 minutes).
  3. Explain to students that in the next lesson they will start outlining a narrative, characters and some game environments for their concepts.

    Teacher tip: Godot Engine has several game ‘Showcase’ videos on its YouTube channel that are great examples of the types of games teams will be creating.

Additional resources

Ask teams to watch some example games in preparation for developing storyboards in the next lesson (for example, Of Life and Land and Pingo Adventure games on the Godot ‘Showcase’ webpage). Emphasise that games with similar mechanics and aesthetics can be created in a variety of free, open-source platforms.