GameOn for pupils

The Barbican Gallery in London has lifted the lid on the educational side of its GameOn exhibition, which will be celebrating 40 years of gaming history this summer. Teachers will be able to attend a special private viewing at the gallery on the evening of Wednesday 22nd May, where they can collect a teachers' pack containing a project aimed at getting eight to thirteen year old pupils to design their own computer game. Included in the pack is a video about the creative process behind Lionhead's hit god game Black & White, which presumably consists of Peter Molyneux running around for four hours punching monkeys and coming up with bizarre new ideas like integrating Radio 4's shipping forecast into the game or making your creature sing along to Britney Spears songs. The Barbican will also be hosting a pair of seminars about the gaming industry, kicking off on May 18th with "The State Of Play", looking at the impact of video games on history, politics and culture, followed by a closing seminar imaginatively titled "The End of Play" on September 7th, exploring the future of computer games and new technology. Speakers include Charles Cecil from Broken Sword developers Revolution and Cannon Fodder 2 designer turned journalist Stuart Campbell. Other events include a series of family workshops for five to eleven year olds at the beginning of August, tasking your little 'uns with designing a story, characters and sounds for a new game. Which should be .. er .. interesting. More details can be found on the GameOn Education page, along with an HTML version of the teachers' pack (minus video, sadly). Related Feature - GameOn interview