Two academics from Warwick’s newly established Design division recently delivered a range of engaging activities for an Esports camp aimed at young aspiring game designers.

Over the Easter holidays, Dr Edward Loveman and Dr James MacKrill were involved in a holiday camp for young attendees aged 4-16, who were able to experience the process of designing games based around sustainability and environmental awareness issues.

The event was hosted in the Esports Centre at their new location on central campus, with each day providing various activities based around game development and sustainability.

An example of the sessions our Design team ran include a Narrative Game Mapping, where game designers were tasked with crafting games that told a story that could be brought to life through the gamer’s gameplay. Attendees invented imaginative contexts that provided compelling narratives before making a game map upon which their plots would play out.

Dr Loveman also concurrently ran a workshop around board game design at the Education conference at Warwick, titled ‘Enacting gamification in learning and assessment’. He commented:

“It was a truly inspiring event where all the young participants were engaged and coming up with some incredible ideas for game design and narratives. Who would have thought that children could be better at creating games than adults!”