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Education Entertainment Games

Nobody Gets a Tan at Video Game Camp 30

Posted by CowboyNeal from the summer-schooled dept.
theodp writes "Kids at NYU's Intensive Video Game Creation are trading open lakes, green mountains and plentiful daylight for air-conditioned classrooms in the city. Those attending the $5,125, five-week camp - all guys aged 15 to 20 - will use the Center for Advanced Digital Application's facilities to learn the techniques behind Doom, Quake and Madden. It's the first summer camp for game builders on the East Coast. Last year, WA-based Digipen held its first video game creation camp in California, and the University of Illinois hosted one for girls."
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Nobody Gets a Tan at Video Game Camp More

Nobody Gets a Tan at Video Game Camp

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  • I like the idea... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by k.ellsworth ( 692902 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @12:20PM (#9653118)
    Perhaps some of the best mod developers should be invited/sponsored by the games companies, that way the mods and games can be greatly enhaced... just think about it, some mods are even better than the original game... complete with your favorite mod (cs, strike force for UT, jailbreak for UT, etc.)

    my $2c

  • Lies, damn lies and... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by flabbergast ( 620919 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @12:23PM (#9653162)
    But Dov Jacobson, an instructor at the camp and founder of Big Fun Development Corp., wants to shoot down the misconceptions of itchy-thumbed gamesters who don't realize that building a game is often much less enjoyable than playing it.

    Less enjoyable? Yes. But, I find building games to be very satisfying from a technical standpoint. I'm also the type of guy who oogles tightly written code rather than flashy graphics, but that's just me.

    As an aside, what kind of advanced techniques can you learn in five weeks? Or for that matter, implement? And what constitutes "advanced"? Somehow, I don't think they're talking John Carmack tweaking code advanced, more like here's opengl use it advanced. Or maybe DirectX, but you'll spend your five weeks learning COM programming.

    I could see it now:

    Students, today we're going to learn an A* path finding algorithm, finite state machines, and I'll teach you linear algebra so you can understand how to shear, rotate, and translate in 3d. We'll break for lunch, and then we'll implement all that in C. Shall we start?
    • It doesn't look too technical ... no calculus involved. They should call it : "how to be a videogame-manager".
      From the site [nyu.edu] :

      Skills gained by taking this course:

      How To Pitch Projects

      Thinking Creatively

      Pre-Production And Production

      Teambuilding Skills

      Video Role-Play Sessions

      Understanding Rigging And Animation Controls

    • Or maybe DirectX, but you'll spend your five weeks learning COM programming.

      Using the Managed DirectX Library in C# or VB.NET is super-easy.

  • Camp Hyrule (Score:2, Informative)

    by Apreche ( 239272 )
    Camp Hyrule [camphyrule.com]

    Nuff said

  • Make programming a game! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by agraupe ( 769778 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @12:36PM (#9653314) Journal
    Perhaps programming should be turned into a game! Give the programmers a specific task, and then give ranks based on least code, fastest running, most clear, etc etc... I have tried programming games. I can vouch that playing the end result (which, oddly, I've never produced) is much more entertaining than programming it for most people. People who program games don't usually say "well, I've programmed it. That's enough for me, I'm not going to play it." I think part of the attraction is playing the game that you coded/helped code and seeing what you actually did.
    • I always enjoyed the old Robot programming games. There was one called C Robots, where different programs would fight in an arena. The challenging part was devising algorithms to scan for targets, take evasive action, and fire at the enemy - all while conserving CPU cycles.

  • If they play Counter-strike it'll suck... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Molina the Bofh ( 99621 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @01:22PM (#9653895) Homepage
    If they play Counter-strike it'll suck... ... because the only ones that will play it in a video-game camp are campers.

  • How come? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Ryan Stortz ( 598060 )
    I'm a little confused as to why the camps are either all boys or all girls. The only reason I can come up with is limited lodging, but personally I'm leaning more towards the teachers being afraid of women.

    • Re:How come? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'm a little confused as to why the camps are either all boys or all girls.

      How the hell are you supposed to group up, sneak into the girls' camp, late at night, beneath the gaze of camp counselors, and capture the flag [worldogl.com] if you're at the same camp?

      Mo-mo-mo-monster kill!
    • Cause it kinda sounds like they're high school camps. Perhaps they are trying to avoid any potential problems....
    • The reason for an all-girl camp is that boys often grandstand, and monopolize time and resources, and girls sometimes feel drowned out - they participate substantially more if they don't have to compete with boys. (Once they've ramped up, so to speak, then co-ed environments are effective.)

  • Let's not forget (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Wanj00n ( 738361 ) on Friday July 09, 2004 @02:06PM (#9654335)
    the camp at Michigan State University [ludonauts.com].
  • Honestly, there are easier, cheaper ways to get experience at actually making games. While sometimes they lack the urgency or the structure of commercial projects, open-source projects can be a good way to gain experience. They don't cost five grand to work on, and you can experience some of the structuring of how tasks are assigned.

  • 5k eek! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There are many better alternatives. Theres a lot of hardware, software and books you could buy for 5k. You could probably even go to industry events and make contacts if you were that keen. Hell, a half dozen of them could invest their 5k and get there first failed start-up behind them early.
    • I agree. While it might be an interesting and helpful tool for people wanting to get into the industry, if you could just invest that money into actual schooling into the subject as in say a college degree. IT would be much more helpful. Of course I do have a question, when they say they are shown what went on behind quake, doom, etc.. are they showing the workings of the engines or just the method. I mean if it was just the method. hell I could have shown them that. Now who wants to give me 5k each to le
  • For a second there I thought that was a typo.
    Yeah, the first CA one was last year, but they've been doing ones at the Washington school for at least the last 5 years.
    Before that, I went to National Computer Camps TWICE where you just learn to program in general over a two week period.
    I went to these things long ago. Seems a bit odd to just be making news now.
  • I have a low-grade tan on my forearms from the glow of my computer screen. THANK YOU VIDEOGAME CAMP!

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