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100 Students, 22 Schools – Now THAT’S a Game Camp!

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WOOHOO! The third game camp for New York is at a close and it finished off an amazing February with a BANG. We started with a smaller game camp at St Francis, then the awesome 48 hour challenge at RIT we named We <3 Games, and now this one.

Held at Pace University in downtown Manhattan, just minutes from Wall Street, this three day camp had 100 students register to attend, including a bunch of teenaged boys and girls, and students from colleges in New York and New Jersey. Check out this awesome list:

Binghamton University Bronx Community College

CUNY Baruch College

CUNY New York City College of Technology

Fordham University

Hofstra University

IGNOU

Iona College

John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Long Island University

Math & Science Exploratory School

Monroe College

Nassau Community College

Nest+M High School

New York Institute of Technology

New York University

Pace University

Polytechnic Institute of NYU

Rutgers University

Saint Francis College

Stevens Institute of Technology

SUNY Stonybrook

So what did we do? We learned how to build an XNA game for Windows from scratch, including Xbox 360 controller support and how to convert it to Windows Phone 7 just for good measure. On top of that, we also introduced dedicated development for the Windows Phone 7 using Silverlight (thanks to my big friendly boss). We played Xbox – Halo Reach, Dance Central, LIPS (including a LIPS tournament on the Saturday night which somehow managed to get me singing Sugababes AGAIN). We ate pizza and subway and consumed soda and water. Candy was thrown about to keep us all high on sugar and prizes such as games, mice, keyboards and more were handed out across the three days.

To top it off, we also gave away an Xbox 360 and Kinect bundle on the Sunday afternoon to the most promising looking game that was created over the weekend. I was super impressed by the efforts of most of the students, but ultimately Lukasz Bator from Hofstra University ended up scoring the ultimate prize.

I should point out that these weekends can be intense – we’re actually coding most of Saturday, so while we do have a bunch of fun and seriously, how can you think of creating a video game as work, it can be overwhelming for people new to programming. Which is why I was so impressed by the high school students who attended and not only lasted the distance but made modifications to their games overnight on Saturday to show off on Sunday. Just put the cherry on top of a champion weekend.

We’re done for now with our game camps as we go into the Imagine Cup US finals and then the worldwide finals (which are going to be in NYC this year – first time in the US!), but look out for the next series we’ll run – most likely in September/October.