Mapping Summer Camp

Summer Camp for Kids, Ninjas
Virtual spaceships descend on campuses where youths learn to create video games. Many want careers in the $25-billion industry.By Seema Mehta
Times Staff Writer

July 28, 2005

For as long as he can remember, Randal Williams has played video games. So it wasn't surprising when he decided one day to design his own game, or that it involved a five-headed dragon that has taken control of Japan.

Complicated stuff for some, but for the 11-year-old from Irvine, it all seemed logical enough. And Randal is not alone. He is one of a growing number of adolescents who are spending a part of their summer at camps learning to create video games.

"I've been fascinated with video games for a really long time, and I decided I wanted to learn how to make them," said Randal, who drafted an 18-page story line for "Ninjas Rise of Goliath" months before the weeklong day camp at UC Irvine began.

Such courses are offered by camp companies, as well as universities such as New York University, which in 2004 began a summer course for teenagers and college students interested in working in the $25-billion gaming industry.

It's impossible to know how many game-creation summer classes there are, but camp watchers say they have seen a growing number ? and a growing sophistication.

"Go back 10 or 20 years ago, and computer camp [focused on] how to turn on the computer, insert the disc, learn word processing. Kids today already know that," said Dan Schulman, director of programs at Oakland-based Allen's Guide, an online directory of summer camps and travel opportunities for children and teenagers.

Now, "kids interested in computer camp are looking for something extra, something they can't get at home or in their local school."

Dan Morris, editor-in-chief of PC Gamer magazine, said the summer camps and other educational opportunities were sorely needed.

"One of the most common questions we get from young readers of our magazine is 'How do I get started?' and we never have a good answer," he said. "It's just such a young industry and such a young art form?. Now, it's starting to mature, [and] it's good to see that the farm teams, so to speak, are getting set up."

The Urban Video Game Academy is holding free video-game creation seminars for at-risk teens in Baltimore, Washington and Atlanta.

Mario Armstrong, a technology correspondent for National Public Radio and an academy co-founder, said that in addition to computer programming skills, the classes expose students to geometry, algebra, physics, art and music. The program is designed to educate teenagers about career opportunities in game creation, to help change an industry in which minorities and women are often depicted in negative stereotypes and rarely as the heroes.

"At the end of the day, this academy is not about teaching software," he said. "It's really about giving underserved kids, kids in the inner city who don't know this is a lucrative career track, the exposure to career opportunities."

Although the academy, which has a waiting list of well over 100 students, is free, the for-profit programs can be pricey. A week at the UC Irvine camp run by iD Tech Camps costs at least $624.

On a recent weekday morning in a bright, air-conditioned lab at UC Irvine, Williams and 15 other adolescents learned how to make ninjas, fiery explosions and spaceships flit across computer screens. iD Tech holds similar programs at schools across the nation, including UCLA, Georgetown and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"It's kind of a no-brainer," said Pete Ingram-Cauchi, president and chief executive of iD Tech Camps, a Campbell, Calif., company that began offering video game-related classes in 2001. "Before, you had to be a mad scientist to program games. Now, it's just like anything else; you don't have to be a programmer to create your own video games ? the technology is so readily available."

Randal hopes the Irvine camp will prepare him for a career in creating video games.

"That's why I took this class, so I can get a head start," he said with a sly grin, "so I can make lots of money."

Troy Phillips of Bakersfield was staying with his grandparents in Costa Mesa so he could attend the day camp. The 11-year-old created a game in which multiple players compete as battling alien spaceships.

"It's pretty cool that you can learn how to make your own video game," he said as his 13-year-old brother sat nearby creating a game in which characters must jump from cloud to cloud without falling.

Even though the program is unlike any camp their parents attended, some benefits of camp remain unchanged from prior generations.

"It's fun to meet new people," said Nick Klang, 13, of Aliso Viejo, "and it's fun to make games."

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

us mappers are doing pretty much the same thing by making maps. althogh its just expanding on HL2 or whatever some people make unique situations that have to carefully engineered with logic_ or ai_ or whatever.

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Bullet Control: $5000 for a bullet.
"I would blow your f**king head off! ...if I could afford it. I'm gonna get another job, start saving some money... then you a dead man!"

Mapping is child's play compared to coding. Why do you think there are so many mappers and so few coders around?

your right it is. but do you think those kids are actually writing out pages of code or just using an editor set up for them? i would think that they were just using an editor.

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Bullet Control: $5000 for a bullet.
"I would blow your f**king head off! ...if I could afford it. I'm gonna get another job, start saving some money... then you a dead man!"

Mapping is child's play compared to coding. Why do you think there are so many mappers and so few coders around?

You aren't serious, right? The world is full of programmers/coders. There are comparitively few mappers.

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http://maze5.net

Ithink that mapping is easier in a way. It is very easy to make a
killbox, and very quickly you feel the gratification of what you made
come to life. Coding however, takes much more time to make
something small.

However, it is extremely hard to make a really good map that people
will play. I agree with mazemaster on this one. Look at all
the maps that are made, and how few are played by the community.

That's not to say that there aren't a lot of programs that nobody uses, but I think you know what I'm getting at :smile:

It depends on what you mean by "make something small" though really, as
a little "hello world" program is equally simple as a basic box level
with a light. Personally I don't think one could be described as being
harder than another - programming is reliant on logical thinking and
knowledge, while level design is more reliant on creativity. Some
people will find programming easier, others will find mapping easier.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Let me clarify a bit -
(1) Being both a mapper and a programmer, I would say that making good maps is at least as difficult as programming, depending on the project. Programming is just problem solving - you plan what you want to do, look up the appropriate algorithms, the data structures, you solve maths, then code up what you want and bug-fix. Mapping is more of an art. An art that requires a lot of technical skills, but art nonetheless.

(2) In real-life, I've met TONS of programmers, and only a few mappers. Think about people you know - how many of them can program vs how many can map? Here on the Snarkpit and similar sites it might seem that there are more mappers than programmers, but thats because this is a mapping website! At my college nearly everyone can program in at least one language (intro programming is a required course), and probably 1/3 have taken more CS courses or program on their own and are decent coders. Compare that to mappers at my college - uhm... only me and one other guy as far as I know.

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http://maze5.net

Mapping is definitely funner.

I've done both (I used to program in six computer languages), and I prefer mapping. It's more like art than pure tedium.

My wife is a professional programmer (she codes in Java), but she thinks mapping is more challenging (because it's reliant more on creativity).

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

I map as a hobby really, at 14 I have no plans on my future, though I
would like to somehow be involved in games. My dad is a
proffesional programmer and makes programs for companies like Sprint
Canada (phone company I think). When I was younger, he showed me
a bit of Visual Basic, and I ended up making a game similar to
Commander Keen, but you could only jump around in a very small
level. I don't really remember much.

However, I've found with mapping, that I can make a lot of stuff, but
never be content with it. No matter how creative the map, I can
never get the feel that I want.

Not sure where I'm going with this.

Never mind :smile:

I may be the only person at the SnarkPit who can program in FORTRAN77.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

I know a coder who hates it because of the stress it caused...

Mapping is as you lot say an art and it is a fun way to show off some nice work plus think of all the things you can do with mapping:

Do graphics homework with it!
Make building layouts and plans for a real building!
Make a level that people play and enjoy :biggrin:

That said, there is a LOT more you can do with programming :smile:

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

One of my friends went to the UCLA video game camp. He doesn't really
remember anything except this one girl he almost hooked up with. I
guess summer camp is always summer camp no matter what, eh? :wink:

indeed.

Mapping has its stress too, look at all te problems everyone has!
I like mapping becuase it is artistic and it can also stress the
logical side of your brain. Brush work and textures plus lighting
are all wel and good, but to really map you need to know
entities. Getting all the elements in your map to work together
is hard, but the pay off is great. Doing that with a multiplayer
map... even greater.

I used to have a commodore computer. It took me half a day of code typing to get a ball to bounce around the screen. I respect you people who can do more than bounce balls around. If I do not say it often enough, I still think it.

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There is no history until something happens, then there is.

mapping is still pretty new to me and ive never done proper coding. but from what i have seen of coding.... mapping all the way!

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Bullet Control: $5000 for a bullet.
"I would blow your f**king head off! ...if I could afford it. I'm gonna get another job, start saving some money... then you a dead man!"

I'd probably be a better coder than mapper. But, I havent had much experience coding anything other than BASIC, so my coding ability is limited. By the end of the year I'll have a pretty good understanding of Java, so I should be able to do stuff in that. Until then, mapping all the way.

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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

You guys are all looking at this through the small window of multiplayer mapping. The role of Level Designer in the game industry, is much larger and more challenging that you may think. Not only do designers rely heavily on and deal with the more abstract concepts of 'fun' and creativity; they also have to know enough about every other aspect of game design, to do their job well. Designers, are in a sense, the backbone, or hub of the whole team. It is certainly as much of a challenge as programming is.

Also, I know I've said this before, but there is a growing devide (in scale with growing graphics and technology), between the visual side of mapping, and the logical game oriented side. Where I work, Level Designers don't create the art. Environment Artists don't design the levels. This sucks in a way, but is also very cool in other ways. I personally miss creating art. The payoff I get, is the ability to truly study, sculpt, and learn the art of 'fun'. I promise you, this can be one of the most challenging jobs in the industry.

This game camp sounds pretty cool though. I sure wish something like this existed when I was a kid. Hell, there wasn't even a college course in game design for me... I had to move out of state for it.