In September, at the Scottish Learning Festival, I was one of the Dragons as part of a Scotland-wide competition for schoolkids to pitch game ideas. The grand prize for the winning idea (Around The World In 80 Duckies) was a guided tour around Denki HQ, hosted by yours truly. This afternoon, Ellie, Emma, Louise and Mrs Jessamine made the trip to take a look inside Denki.
We heard from Graham about art (the girls would all like to be artists), Paul about test (somehow, his jokes even got a laugh), Brek about design (maths turns out to be useful after all), and Tom about programming (the glue that holds everything else together). We talked about the Denki Difference, how to get into the games industry and about how games are used in education. Then they had a chance to play Quarrel and the Wii game we’re working on.
Before they left, the girls filled in our guestbook (two pages after Bud Luckey, fact fans) with what makes them smile (Denki, Pac-Man and… Paul?), how much they enjoyed playing the games and their thumbprints. We handed out their special Denki goodie bags to make everyone back at the school jealous, and all being well they should be boarding their train home about… now.
It was fantastic having them here, as it was a great reminder of why we make games – to let people have fun and smile.
-David (@dwlt)