Brownie Digital Game Design

The second badge in the Brownie Coding for Good series is Digital Game Design.  You can purchase a badge insert that covers all three badges in your council shop or you can buy a pdf download from GSUSA.  However, like the inserts for robotics and for cybersecurity, the Coding for Good insert is mainly background information as opposed to being in the three choices for each of five requirements format.  Instead, the insert refers you to VTK for the activities to earn these badges.

This article is a summary of the VTK plans for Brownie Digital Game design. The idea is to allow you to decide, without reading 30 pages of a script found in two different places, whether your troop wants to do these badges.

The activities in the VTK plans are "unplugged"; they do not require a computer or computer expertise.  However, GSUSA has partnered with Codespark Academy and if you are working on a service unit or council-level program for these badges you can get a code that allows you short term free access.

Character Development

Computer games these days have characters, and the first exercise is supposed to get girls thinking about characters.  As they come into the meeting room,  the girls are to pair up and discuss their favorite game characters, and strike a post that shows something the character does.

Opening

After the usual Pledge of Allegiance, Girl Scout Promise etc. the leader tells the girls that for the Digital Game Design badge, they are going to learn how programmers create video games. She begins with an idea, thinks about the characters and the action, creates the artwork and then puts everything together.  The leader points out that this can take years, and that since they only have a couple of meetings, they will focus on creating a paper plan for a game that could be programmed on a computer.

Hopscotch

Start with the traditional single, double, single hopscotch diagram drawn or taped on the ground.  Put a finish line a sufficient distance away to allow each girl to add an element to the hopscotch and close enough that doing so will get you to the finish line.  Girls line up and go through the diagram as built.  As they come to the end, girls add an element to the hopscotch. Suggested ideas are a "tightrope" or "island" but it is unclear what the girls are supposed to do when they encounter these.  Perhaps the girls are supposed to come up with the rules. 

Afterwards, discuss the goal of the game, the rules, and point out that digital games have goals and rules too.  Discuss that we can play games for fun, or for other reasons like to learn or try new things.  Discuss how some games are "for good" --created for a cause, to help us learn or to help our health.

Maze Game

After reviewing a few board games and how they are played, Brownies play a 3-D maze game prepared by the leader.  Programming signals tell how to move a stuffed animal or doll through the maze.  The girls have to create an algorithm that gets the doll through the maze.  While going through the maze the doll stops to pick up trash and put it in the recycling bin.  The game is more fully described in the VTK plans, but basically the girls have to put the directions together in the right order--go forward one space, turn to the right, jump, turn left etc.  

Design a Maze Game

Discuss with the girls that planning what you are going to do is as important (and often as time-consuming) as actually doing it.  The objective is to create a maze game for good.  Discuss possible themes.  Then have the girls sketch a character, obstacles, things to pick up and a goal.  Girls share their plans with another Brownie.  The leader then passes out craft sticks and other art supplies and girls begin work on a 3-D model of their maze game.  This is the end of meeting 1.

Playing Board Games

The leader has a variety of board games available for the girls to play as they arrive.  She tells the girls to play, and to pay attention to how the game works.  In the opening circle discuss the rules and the goals. 

Playing the Maze Game

A 6X6 grid is drawn on the floor or made with paper.  Girls take turns using their plans to turn a Brownie into their character, who the other girls then direct through the maze by creating an algorithm.  Discuss how revising the game can make it more fun.  Point out that planning lets us try different ideas and that programmers try different options to find the best one. Girls then rebuild the 3-D model they made at the last meeting to incorporate any changes.  

My Comments

I can see why the badge brochure for these badges does not include the usual five requirements with three options per requirement.  Here is what Badge Explore says are the requirements:

Explore how video games can help people to learn new skills and experience new things.

1. Discover how game design can be used "for good"
2. Explore tools used to develop digital games
3. Plan a maze game
4. Build, test, and improve your maze game using iteration
5. Share your game with others

When you've earned this badge, you'll know how to think like a game maker and use iteration to plan, build, and test a game.

Basically the VTK plans are a lesson plan that guides you through the process of game design.  While I think the ideas are interesting,and that the girls will have fun with this, I think any who picked it because it deals with designing computer games would be disappointed that it doesn't involve any computer games.

I can't get far enough into the Codespark Academy site to say how adding it to your plans would help or enrich the meeting plan.  However, the first level in Codespark is learning about coding and the second is game design.