Two weeks of create in
the bag and we have all learned a lot.
Let me begin by saying that this is a blast! My favorite part so far has been just
watching the kids discover things.
Whether it is the Racers making tracks that reach tallest point that
they can then plummet to the lowest point allowed in the creation space or
watching another young creator place bounce pads at different heights (on
pause) just to bounce around and declare it is the most fun he has had with a
game. It has been a joy to watch them
play with gravity, paint, track coating, fire, and glass. I watched my Runners make the same object about fifty times and laugh hysterically when they unpaused it and the objects all fell to the ground. No joke, by the end of their first session,
one of the kids had made his name out of materials and triumphantly shouted,
“Look!” as he tweaked it to be covered in flames. This has been a lot of fun.
This is a sample of what one of the students is working on in Karting.
At the same time we have
all had to tapper our expectations a bit.
After creating three educational levels (working on my fourth, more on
that soon), two regular levels in LBP 1, one unpublished monstrosity, and three
or four races in ModNation Racer (from the same people who developed
LBPKarting), I had to remember that is was not easy at first, and that is where
all my learners are. Rather than letting
them do everything, I am going to have to take a co-creator role. On an individual basis I am going to have to use
the same practice I do when teaching. Model, guide, let go. There are things that they want to do that I
am going to need to walk them through and ideas that we are going to have
modify based on what is available in the game and the amount of time we
have. I am still completely confident
that they will each make something really cool by the end of the year, but they
will need a guiding hand.
Sorry about the dark picture, it was a cloudy day outside.
The kids have also had a
bit of a realization. For the kart
racing team, they have played with the track editor and enjoyed
themselves. Now is the tricky part;
taking the nice tracks that they have built and turning them into actual races
or getting down to business with their ideas for arenas. For the LBP2 kids it is the realization that
this may not be as easy as it all seems.
This is going to take a while.
Fortunately, we have a while. 3
months to be exact. It will come
together, or at the very least we will have something that resembles their
ideas to share.
