Game Design Mentors

As I was planning a game design course for our Middle School, an element that I thought would add great value was mentorship by game design professionals. I got the idea from Gamestar Mechanic who advertises interaction with professionals as a part of their Online Course.

I wasn't sure how successful I would be in recruiting pros to help out with our small, Middle School class but nothing ventured, nothing gained right? I told a student about my desire to connect with some local game designers and he took it upon himself to find a site that listed contact info for many Austin game companies. I cast out a lot of emails with hopes of getting some bites. I got some great resources from Colin Blankenship, Visual Communications Dept. at  Austin Community College. I also got a response from Bluepoint Games. They agreed to send their Creative Director @kynanpearson @kynanpearson to visit with our students about the Game Design industry. See post

Matt Lipstein @matthewlipstein connected me with a friend of his Alyson Levy with BrainPop who in turn connected me with Mike Wikan of E-Line Media and Sam Potasznik. Mike agreed to come out and visit with our students and share his career path in the industry. See post  Sam formally worked at BrainPop on design teams that created games such as "Guts and Bolts" and "Food Fight". Sam has accepted the roll of mentor to five  of our students on their game designs. He connected to the class via Skype to introduce himself and meet students so they understood their was a real person giving them feedback. Our Director of IT met another game designer in Dallas one weekend and put me in contact with him. Craig Prince works for Gearbox Software and after a couple of emails Craig said he was on board to help. He is mentoring two students. Finally, I recruited help from Michael Rogers,  CEO of Aspyr and an SGCS parent. He involved Scott White, Studio Director at Aspyr as well as Rhett Bennatt the Art Director in the project as a mentor to three students in our class.

The process looks like this: for the months of October and November/December, students are required to submit one game design for a grade. During the design process, they have their peers playtest and offer feedback which they use to iterate on their design. Once they have a product that they feel good about, they send it to me and I send it to their mentor. Mentors play the games and send an email back to me with feedback for the students. Students use the feedback to iterate a final time and then submit to me for a grade.

The quality of the feedback from the mentors is invaluable. From the students perspective, it elevates the level of importance of the work they are doing.

Sam's feedback to students has been amazing. He could have a calling as a teacher. He begins his feedback with a very positive statement to students about their game and then offers some very sound advice for improvement. He finishes all of his feedback with a positive note.

Craig's feedback is very detailed and professional. He keeps it real and does not mince words. This is perfect for the students he mentors because they take their game work seriously and need to be challenged.

Scott also gives very detailed feedback. He really explains not only what students can change to improve their game but also why the change is important. His feedback helps the students have a better understanding of the game system and how the elements in the system are interdependent. Additionally, he helps students understand what their players may be feeling during the game experience and how their choices can make that experience a more positive one. Here are some examples of mentor feedback (October).
December Mentor Feedback

I believe the involvement of mentors from the industry is an extremely valuable part of this course. Students want their work to have meaning and relevance; not something they simply do for a grade. Feedback from a respected industry mentor motivates students to do their best work and provides real-world context for the skills we as educators strive to help them develop.