Video games

Since 2009, the Seine-Saint-Denis County Council has been backing “la Culture et l’Art au Collège (CAC)”. This project is based to a large extent on the presence in class for several weeks (40h) of an artist or scientist whose mission is to engage the students in a process of research and creation. 

Partners and tutors : CNAM/ Centre d’étude et de recherche en informatique, CNAM, Stéphane Natkin/ Teacher and director of the Ecole Nationale du Jeu et des Médias Interactifs Numériques, Institut du Cnam, Stéphanie Mader, game designer and PhD student, CEDRIC/CNAM, Alexandre Topol, lecturer, CEDRIC/CNAM, Guillaume Levieux, PhD in information science, CEDRIC/CNAMn Viviane Gal, engineer, CEDRIC/CNAM, Mehdi Zourgani/ psychologist

Project manager: Anna Mezey

Objectives: 
An introduction to the world of video games through basic questions: What is a video game? How does it work and how is it made? Although the project focuses on making the model of a videogame, the pupils also discuss their ideas of video games and the place they hold in their leisure activities. 

Workshops:
Launch of the project at the Musée des Arts et Métiers with an introduction to the history of video games. The MuseoGames exhibitions took the pupils immediately into the video game theme and let them try consoles from the 1980s.

Design of a model for a video game. Researchers or specialists in video games helped pupils analyse some of the "classics" (Tetris, Pong, etc.) and identify the important stages in game design. Presentation of Game Maker, the software that the pupils would later work with.

Making the game. The pupils spent several sessions with the tutor working on the steps in game design. Together they defined the game, its environment, rules, levels, narrative and graphic design. The game was finalised on Game Maker.

At the end of the project, several classes met a psychologist specialised in digital culture and especially in video games, to talk about the game they had made in class.

Exhibition:
The video games were shown in the schools on MICACO screening equipment. They screened not only the video games made by the five classes, but also a series of interviews with an engineer explaining the video game environment. The games will be made available in the schools' media centres.

Outings (selection):
- MUSÉE DES ARTS ET MÉTIERS. MUSEOGAMES EXHIBITION.
- LE CUBE. DIGITAL DESIGN CENTRE. INTRODUCTION TO THE VIDEO GAME DESIGN BUSINESS.

Participating schools: 
- Collège Madame de Sévigné, Gagny
- Collège Lenain de Tillemont, Montreuil
- Collège Lavoisier, Pantin
- Collège Pablo Picasso SEGPA, Montfermeil
- Collège Pierre-André Houël, Romainville