Groups of Rhinelander middle and high schools are spread out working in the One Prospect Digital Media Center at the high school.
A few are working on board games they created but most are focused on computer games.
Lucas Haselton is a junior who is doing the coding for his groups video game.
“I’m trying to get our sprout to go downward. This is a test speed to control it with the arrow keys. The goal of the game will be to maneuver the sprout between the obstacles and go down as far as you can,” said Haselton.
Haselton has done some coding before, but nothing to this degree.
“Definitely a big difference from what I’m used to I haven’t touched like half of this before,” he said.
He enjoys figuring these programs out and wants to go into programming, so joining the Game Design and Development Lab made sense.
“Being able to branch into various types of programming makes it easier to figure out where you want to end up,” said Hazelton.
While Haselton joined for the coding, 7th Grader Kaleiha Gelebke wanted to put her art skills to the test.
She designed artwork with a stylus in a computer program that will be used as graphics in her groups game.
“I’m not very techy and I don’t do a lot with coding. I haven’t done anything with coding in the past, but I knew that people needed stuff, like I can draw. I’ve been told by many people that my drawings are good and stuff like that, so I came here to just use it as another outlet to just put my art out there,” said Gelebke.
ArtStart Cultural and Community Director Melinda Childs says it may not be a person’s first thought when it comes to gaming, but art plays a huge role.
“There’s a lot of art design and art direction both in the visuals, in the concepting. It’s a creative process. It’s a collaborative process which people don’t often associate with art making, but it’s a skill that you learn,” said Childs.
The artwork aspect was actually what initiated the game design lab.
The Game Design and Development Lab is part of the Culture Tap Artist Residency Program in Rhinelander which is now in its third year.
“We started off by meeting with all of the art teachers and asking them what the need was. All the middle and high school teachers said the kids were really interested in video games and they’d really love to have someone talking about game design,” said Childs.
Childs reached out to ArtStart’s network which led her to Jeremy Nikolai, a software engineer and programmer from Stevens Point.
“It’s a hook for a lot of kids. It was for me in terms of games are such an important part of our childhood. It’s the storytelling medium of our time,” said Nikolai. “On top of that it’s a great team building exercise. It’s a great way to get together and build something together with your friends and classmates that you wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise.”
Nikolia says technology is now ingrained in just about every industry. He believes the skills they’re learning building games will help the students wherever they go in life.
“Even if you do want to get into farming there’s a digital component to that. Everything is automated now. There’s a technical component to everything,” he said.
While the students are building these coding skills and having fun designing games, there’s another motivation for their creations.
They’re participating in the youth division of the 2023 Global Game Jam.
Rhinelander School District is one of 15 sites participating worldwide.
“Now here part of a whole worldwide game design program, which is pretty cool,” said Childs.
The art design and coding hasn’t been without its challenges, but it’s something that the students have been enjoying, even if ones like Gelebke didn’t have it on their radar before this.
“If I asked myself three months ago I would have said no, but it’s really fun. I like being able to design all the different features and watch how they incorporate it into the coding and stuff,” said Gelebke.
You can see the games the students have been working on for the last five weeks.
Nicolet College is hosting a Showcase Night at its Lakeside Center.
It’s Thursday, March 2 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
There will be a short program in the theater followed by the showcase in the lobby.
