From player to creator: Designing video games on gaming handhelds with Microsoft TileCode

Today, billions of players around the world have helped propel the video game industry into a multibillion-dollar business. However, most gaming devices aren’t used to create games, a missed opportunity to learn computing fundamentals while exercising the imagination. With the new coding platform Microsoft TileCode, researchers aim to turn players of video games into video game creators.

In this webinar, led by Dr. Thomas Ball, Partner Researcher at Microsoft Research, and Stefania Druga, a PhD student at the University of Washington, learn how children and families are using TileCode to create retro video games on handheld gaming devices. You’ll gain an understanding of programming language design and the connections between video game mechanics and computational concepts. You’ll also learn how jointly designing new experiences benefits children and parents.

Together, you’ll explore:

■ How the TileCode programming model provides a visual means for specifying the context around a sprite, how a sprite should move based on that context, and what should happen upon sprite collisions
■ How the TileCode user interface enables the creation of video games on handheld gaming devices
■ Examples of video game designs from a series of family workshops hosted to learn about how children understand and execute game design

𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁:

■ Microsoft TileCode (project page): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/microsoft-tilecode/
■ Microsoft TileCode (gaming manual and web app): https://microsoft.github.io/tilecode
■ Microsoft TileCode (GitHub) – https://github.com/microsoft/tilecode
■ TileCode: Creation of Video Games on Gaming Handhelds (publication) – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/tilecode-creation-of-video-games-on-gaming-handhelds
■ Microsoft TileCode: Design, Code, and Play Games on MakeCode Arcade Devices (blog): https://www.makecode.com/blog/arcade/tilecode

*This on-demand webinar features a previously recorded Q&A session and open captioning.

This webinar originally aired on November 18, 2020

Explore more Microsoft Research webinars: https://aka.ms/msrwebinars

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