Ambitious Dundee-based developer Guerilla Tea organised and ran two workshops for teenagers with learning disabilities earlier this year. They’ve already shared some of their experiences here on SGN…
The goal of the workshop was to show that creating games and working within the games industry is far more open and inclusive than many people might think.
The first workshop challenged the teenage participants to come up with a team name, a game concept and use pencil and pen to build a working design for the game itself.
The team, now named Lazy Boys, came up with an ideas for an ‘endless runner’ type of game in which the main protagonist (Norman) would take to the rooftops to avoid hostil elderly people. It would be called, On The Free Run.
The second workshop split the group into artists and coders. The artists used traditional tools to create the environment, character and objects within the game, while the programmers used YoYo Games’ GameMaker to build a working version of the game.
In total, the Lazy Boys had around 4 hours to work on the game, from concept to creation, a spectacular achievement.
Better yet, Guerilla Tea has applied a little polish, finalised the games and released On The Free Run for both Google Play and Apple iOS. FREE.
We really can’t say enough about the hard work put in by the team at Guerilla Tea or how impressed we are at their efforts to open the industry up to a group normally excluded from these type of events.
The fact that the company has gone on to finalise and publish the game speaks volumes about Guerilla Tea’s commitment to the project. The input and support from other people within the industry including Phil Harris, Ryan Locke (and your editor) helped provide context and an overview of how the games industry works.
We are very, very impressed. By everyone involved.
You can – and should – go and download On The Free Run NOW. It’s FREE and it’s fun.
You can find the Apple iOS version here.
