Colorado State University, University of Denver

As appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette – Technology camp is worlds apart from others Kids get a chance to create their own video games by Brian Newsome

As appeared in Colorado Springs Gazette
July 16, 2007

By Brian Newsome

With deft keyboard strokes, 13-year-old Dillon McCaig flies a jet and blasts away at bad guys. His pilot lands the craft and walks across a landscape of fire and green goo.

The computer game “Hyper Bomber” isn’t so different from the thousands of other video games that make up a multibillion-dollar industry.

Except for one thing: Dillon’s is homemade.

The Colorado Springs teen is one of nearly two dozen students who spent last week at Colorado College creating video games and video game worlds at technology camp. It was the fourth of six computer camps being offered at CC this summer through California-based iD Tech, which runs camps across the U.S. and in Spain.

Students ages 8 to 17 learned the ins and outs of game making, from the seemingly simple arranging of trees or buildings to creating the physical laws of a virtual world.

When Matthew Sadeik, 12, of Colorado Springs, defied a law of physics, his hero — a Sonic the Hedgehog look-alike named Shadow — did bellyflops in the ocean instead of fighting the evil monster.

They used game-making software that provided some basic building blocks — ninjas, swordsmen, tanks, animals, trees and buildings. Otherwise, the virtual sky was the limit.

Maile McCann, 11, of Pueblo, led a squid on an adventure in search of treasure and sea urchins. In 15-year-old Ian Barnhart’s game, the protagonist goes on a camping trip-turned-quest. Make a wrong move, and you might get this message: “Well you managed to die in the woods getting firewood. Sucks to be you…”

Another student’s tank plowed through the battlefield. Others sent their swordsmen and ninjas against armies of skeletons and evildoers.

Beaming with pride, Will Pulham, 11, boasted that no one, including camp instructors, had successfully beaten “Kamikaze Watermelon,” in which one must guide a falling watermelon through obstacles to go splat in the city below.

“It’s beatable,” he exclaimed when he conquered his own creation. “I beat the game! I beat the Kamikaze Watermelon!”

Down the hall, older students created new 3-D worlds for an existing video game called “Battlefield.” Jacob Key, 17, of Brandon, Miss., built a warehouse with carefully placed barrels, scrap and boxes — and weapons.

Although the camp revolves around computers, instructors make sure students are doing more than hovering over a monitor each day. The group goes ice skating, hangs out at coffee shops and plays outdoors, said Terri Balogh, director of the CC camp.

Other camps offered by iD Tech include making digital movies, building robots and designing Web sites. The hope, says Balogh, is that students will come away with an education that didn’t feel like school.

“They’re having so much fun that the learning is just something that ends up happening.”

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0198 or bnewsome@gazette.com

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