MCHS Students Design Computer Games

Students Gabby Muir, sophomore, 16, David Kohler, sophomore, 16 and Zachary Heinen, sophomore, 15

In the workplace, at school and at home, computers are used everyday. It’s almost impossible to avoid them. 

Students enrolled in the Computer Game Design class at Minooka Community High School, are not only getting a learning experience about computers and what career opportunities are available in the workplace, they are just having plain fun demonstrating their creativity and skills through the creation of their own original computer game.

At the end of each semester, students are challenged by their teacher, Wes Anderson, to design a game lasting between 30 seconds and two minutes long. The games are stylistically similar to those commonly found on the Internet. After all designs are submitted, classmates will vote on each others games.

“I took this elective class for fun and may take the advance level because I enjoy playing video games in my free time,” said Gabby Muir, sophomore at MCHS. 

Muir said her brother was an influence on her to take the computer class. He is currently in college, majoring in computer design.

Muir tied with classmate Joel Diaz, sophomore, for best overall game design. Her game has penguins engaged in a snowball fight. The object of the game is to avoid being hit by a snowball.

“It’s a simple game for any age to enjoy,” Muir said.

Muir and her fellow students used the Alice program to create their computer games. Alice is new, 3D programming that makes it easy to create an animation for an interactive game. It uses a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a pleasant experience for first-time students using the program. 

When not playing computer games, Muir loves to read; a hobby that was instilled in her at a young age by her mother, Mary Muir who is a first grade teacher at in Channahon. She also enjoys hanging out with her friends, singing in the school choir and is looking forward to her second year as a member of the tennis team.

Muir wants to follow her mother’s footsteps and become a teacher. Her focus is on history. She would also like to become an anthropologist at a museum and to explore the world for artifacts to display in museums.

David Kohler, sophomore at MCHS said he enrolled in this class because he thought playing and making video games during school would be a fun and easy class. His design won him the most original game award.

“My game is similar to the iPhone app,'Flick Homerun,'” Kohler said. “ A baseball comes from the right side of the screen and you move the mouse to hit the ball. Playing the iPhone app so much gave me the idea to just make a game similar to it.”

Kohler said it took only six hours to create his game. Every student in the class took about a minute to play the game and determined that Kohler’s game was the most original.

Kohler played , and his freshman year at MCHS. Currently he is playing on the school’s basketball team. He is still deciding on whether we will play baseball or in the spring.

Zachary Heinen, sophomore at MCHS said he designed a game where there is a time limit to save from a sinking island.

"I liked the class," Heinen said. "It was fun."