Summer Camp for Noobs

May 16th was the last day of classes here at Frostburg State University. With only about a week of final exams separating the students from their freedom, planning for the summer has already begun. Many of us probably remember going to a summer camp at least once during our childhood. Swimming, craft-making, archery, and camp fires are some of the more common scenes depicted at such places. What I'm most interested in however, are not these traditional summer camps, but rather the untraditional ones: Video Game Summer Camps!

Most kid gamers are shy and lack the necessary social skills to find friends easily. As a parent, a Video Game Summer Camp (VGSC) sounds like a good way to force his or her son or daughter into making friends. Most VGSCs combine traditional summer camp activities such as swimming and crafts with the more technological activities including programming and graphic design.

In July of 2004, New York University opened its VGSC to children. The aim of this summer camp was to help develop young creator's abilities as soon as possible. The camp consists of classes starting at nine o'clock in the morning every day. The classes all teach a specific technique found in one of the three main components of game design: design, art, and programming. Unfortunately, most young gamers don't realize there is a difference between the fun involved in playing a game and making a game. An Associated Press article on MSNBC.com quoted Dov Jacobson, an instructor at the NYU VGSC, when he stated that "the people who are real good at playing games are people who don't buckle down. You need someone who can focus in and finish their part of the
game." Of course, when reality sets in on these young minds, it is far less damaging than it probably would have been if they had been older.

I probably wouldn't want to go to any of these VGSCs because of the mere fact that they are creating and not playing. I won't deny that I had thoughts about one day creating my own games as part of a team. There was even a period in which I bought a piece of software known as RPG Toolkit, a 2D game design program that allowed users to create there game. It even came with its own programming language that you had to learn in order to program things like short cut scenes and to arrange for random item drops. I spent at least twenty hours on a classic 2D scrolling RPG that I called, "The Twelve Sentinels." It wasn't until I had finished the item database consisting of over 300 unique items that my Hewlett Packard 4800 crashed for the last time; game over.

So will these kids come back from VGSCs with the ability to create the next Zelda or Ultima Online? The answer is a definite and resounding no. I would be willing to bet $100 that most of them come back paler and with fewer friends than when they left. Yet, as we observe this push for exposing kids to video game design I am left with just two questions: When is there going to be a VGSC where the kids actually play video games and is there going to be an age limit? GG.