Background

As part of Bermuda Island Games' vision to see a video game industry form in Bermuda, we realize that it starts with the next generation coming up. In 2022, we had organized and launched the first Junior Video Game Design Bootcamp to help encourage those in the younger age bracket (7 - 13).

The response was amazing! We had inially planned to accommodate up to 20 students, and that quickly became oversubscribed. We were just barely able to handle all 30 students, thanks to the help from 2 instructors and 5 volunteers.

The lessons started with Iman Gibbons from dCyfa Communications interacting with students to get a sense of what they know about programming and computers in general. This carried on to start working with the Scratch game engine, which most children have used, or at least heard of before. Scratch is known for facilitating a very basic introduction to programming using modules that can be dragged-and-dropped to make simple 2D games.

By lunch-time we took a break and went to the quadrangle to eat pizza and discuss what was covered so far. In the afternoon, we introduced the Unreal Engine to those who had never heard of it, but were quite familiar with Fortnite game (the sme company who made Unreal). This approach allowed the children to start creating 3D games immediately by using templates without having to understand the full intricacies of the game engine.

Overall it was a very positive experience for both the students and the instructors, as most of the feedback was asking for when the next one will be available.

After discussing with the various stakeholders, we realized this was a necessity in Bermuda, and had decided to make this an annual event.

This Time Around

For 2023, we will focus on a similar style, beginning with the relatively easy Scratch engine in the morning, and switching to start using Roblox Studio in the afternoon.

Instructor Adrian Lodge has recently taught the Video Game Basics course which included both Roblox Studio and Unity to students aged 14 and older. For this year's bootcamp he will take those same lessons and tweak them to cater to a younger audience, and for a longer duration. Roblox Studio, syncs with the Roblox game engine which most students know, and love to play.

By teaching them how to make games that they actually can play with others, it reinforces the opportunities that are available for them to excel in video game development.

Providing these events not only enable students to learn new skills and tap into areas of expertise they can build upon, but it also encourages a social environment to meet and interact with others with similar interests that may not go to the same school.