Games Club

15 Sep 2023 Blog, Games Club, Tinderbox Lab, Youth and Community

Games Club Autumn Term!

Tinderbox Collective

Woo, we’re so excited that our weekly Saturday morning Games Club is back and registration is open now!

The Games Club has two bits of exciting news:

For this next term we’ll be hanging out and making games at Duncan Place:
📍 Duncan Place, Leith, Edinburgh
The Games Club is now hybrid which means you can join in both in-person or online!

At the Games Club (for ages 10-16) we play, research and make games together, as well as design our own artwork, audio & code needed for them! We use different forms of technology to make games, but we also use traditional methods such as hand-drawn art, board game making, clay-sculpting, crafting with recycled objects, and more. Along the way we may also explore other types of creative technology such as virtual reality (VR), electronics & circuit-building, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), and 3D printing!

Everyone is welcome to get involved, and no game design or programming experience is necessary. You can join us whether you are brand new to gaming or if you play & make your own games already!

Find out more and sign-up here or below, or get in touch with us at lab@tinderboxcollective.org with any questions!

Term dates:

Saturday 23rd September – 14th October
Saturday 28th October
Sun 5th November
Sat 11th November – 16th December
No session on 21st Oct & 4th Nov

Times:

In-person sessions from 11am – 12:30pm
Online sessions from 11:30am – 12:30pm

2 Jun 2023 Blog, Games Club, Tinderbox Lab, Youth and Community Digital Arts, Tinderbox Lab, Youth & Community

Workshops at The Wee Hub and Spartans!

Tinderbox Collective

Over the past few months we have been exploring the fun of making games in all forms with children and young people!

Each month in February, March and April we setup a drop-in games workshop upstairs with our pals at The Wee Hub, where in just short fast-paced sessions we have explored making all sorts of digital and physical card games, using a mix of computing, games design and crafts. Results have included designing colourful, challenging platform games, and a certain pocket-monster-inspired battle card game…!

We also absolutely loved visiting the STEM club at Spartans Community Football Academy on 6th February, where we explored the creative sides of technology by building a wacky digital game collaboratively with the group. Together we brainstormed games design ideas to improve the experience, and made new handdrawn character, background and object artwork to decorate it! A big thanks to Spartans for welcoming us and for such a fun workshop.

You can see and play a selection of the games we’ve made across our workshops and more regular Games Clubs here!

https://tinderbox-lab.itch.io/

2 Jun 2023 Blog, Games Club, Tinderbox Lab, Youth and Community Digital Arts, games club, Saturday games club, Tinderbox Lab, Youth and Community

Saturday Games Club

Tinderbox Collective

Our Saturday Games Club is currently in full swing with only two sessions to go (no session on June 3rd)! We’re excited to show what the club has been working on, but for now check out last term’s game and check out this blog about it from Lead Tutor Mel!

“Last term our Saturday Games Club met for five sessions from Feb to March, on Saturday mornings between 11am and 12.30pm, in the Tinderbox Lab space as part of The Wee Hub (Ocean Terminal). This term was full of electronics, fish, 3D printing and underwater worlds. We continued working on our digital game Ruins of the Deep, adding new characters, obstacles and game mechanics. We also began to explore adding new physical elements to this game, creating a scavenger hunt-style challenge that took you out of the game space, into the real world, and back into the game again.

To create this scavenger hunt challenge, we played a scavenger hunt, we explored electronics, including makey makeys (where we made some fruit into keyboards), and we learnt how to use a 3D printer. Each session was brimming with ideas, passion and creativity, as groups worked on digital game design, visual design, and physical game design, always fuelled by biscuits, oranges and glasses of squash.

Over the term we developed an adapted version of Ruins of the Deep, with a new level which invites you into an installation in the physical world. Our final session was a celebration where we played the game together, exploring the digital world designed and coded by the group, and exploring a physical installation too, to find hidden 3D printed coins and copper tape buttons.

You can play our game here…

And find out more/register for the current Games Clubs here!

Mel (Lead Tutor)”

Sign ups for the Saturday Games Club are now full but you can register your interest by contacting admin@tinderboxcollective.org