For a group of teens attending the Design Camp at the University of Minnesota in August, seeing the world as a potential game space took on new meaning. Eric Socolofsky and I--two members of the Gamestar Mechanic design team (a game developed by Gamelab--spent the week working with the teens to design and playtest games in the alpha build of the editor we currently have for the game.

As part of the game's larger playtesting and assessment plan, design camp proved to be a remarkably fruitful site for learning about the kinds of games the teens were able to make. We worked with 12 participants, ages 14-17. Most were boys, 2 girls, some were gamers, some not. All loved to play, however, as evidenced in the many rounds of playtesting held throughout the week. Each teen's experience varied widely but by the end of the week everyone had gained an enormous amount of confidence in their ability to design fun, playable games.