Crossovers: from comfort to struggle

I've been planning out my talk more, for the Australian Game Programming in Schools Conference

One set of ideas is motivation / fun / comfort which, it could be argued, correlates to game playing

Another set of ideas involves opposite concepts such as hard / frustrating / struggle / painful. This can correlate to learning to program games.

My new thoughts are to do with the crossover from the first set of ideas to the second set of ideas. I think there are a variety of crossovers which is what makes it all interesting and complex:

• GENERATIONAL – younger people play more games than older people
• GENRE – game playing is different to game making
• EMOTIONAL – from social fun to hard struggle

I can work my own story and that of my students into that format and others could relate to it in their own way, add to the story. The key to the whole thing is working out ways to facilitate the crossovers.

Related blogs: Something is making me do it, My mental block, Hard programming problems, Enjoying discomfort.