From knitting to business economics, our school has many classes to choose from, and some are particularly interesting. Game Design and Authoring for the web is a class where students are given a challenging programming experience through utilizing the basic skills of programming while designing videogames.

“It is simulated video game production where students pose as interns at a videogame company,” Game Design teacher Shaina Prough said. “They go through a series of programs and design a game for two specific target market.”

In order to take the class, students need to have taken Computer Applications, Emerging Technologies and Advanced Algebra II, or have teacher recommendation.

“We worked on a few big projects which consisted of coding, creating graphics, obtaining music, et cetera,” junior Brenden Koenigsman said. “The best part of the class is getting to express your creativity through a videogame.”

Prough said that there is never a quick fix in this class; therefore, students need to solve problems, sometimes by collaborating with each other.

“I would recommend this class,” Prough said. “I’m not sure if having tablets would change the program though.”

Prough said she would highly recommend more girls to get into game design because so far, only boys have taken the class.

“This class helped me become a better problem solver,” Koenigsman said. “It forced me to find solutions to coding problems that occurred throughout the project.”

16bmathias@usd489.com