The Code Liberation Foundation was founded by Phoenix Perry because she wanted more women to get involved in game making. It organizes game events for women and people who identify as women, and women teach gamemaking to other people who identify as female. They have three upcoming classes.
If you’re a lady who has been thinking she might want to learn how to make video games, you may find yourself scratching your head a little bit as you try to decide which of the three classes are right from you. Technically Brooklyn did a bit of research to try to help nascent gamers choose between the three:
- Game Maker Workshop, November 20-21 at 6:30 pm. Game Maker Studio appears to be the most beginner friendly of the offerings. As Code Liberation describes it, it’s good for prototyping. Here’s a pretty thorough discussion about Game Maker versus Unity in which you learn that they can both do a lot, but Game Maker is probably the least flexible (hence, easiest) option on this list.
- HTML 5 / JavaScript Workshop, November 22-23 at 6:30 pm. JavaScript is more coding heavy than the above, but a developer evangelist at Microsoft argues that HTML 5 is a nice option for creating multi-platform games (PCs, phones, tablets, etc). If you ever messed around with HTML a bit in high school, maybe you’ll find this a bit more familiar, though this reporter has no clue if knowledge of HTML gets you at all ready for JavaScript.
- Unity Boot Camp, December 4-5 at 6:30 pm. The software in Unity is a good choice for making 3D games. It requires more coding than Game Maker, and apparently the code is similar (but not the same) to JavaScript.
All the classes are free. You might want to shoot them an email if you want to plan for how long you’ll be there.
If you just want to get a feel for the Code Liberation Foundation crew first, wait on the classes; just go to a game jam and contribute what you already know. Game jammers are good at using everyone’s skills, even folks who can’t code at all. Their next Game Jam starts December 6th.
Here’s a video from one of the past events:
https://vimeo.com/75936255
