This Working Example documents the ongoing effort to introduce narrative-focused game creation to underserved youth across multiple settings in South and Downtown L.A. Becoming expert in playing and making games requires learning processes for recognizing patterns in initially noisy systems, leading to agency within the designed systems and hopefully life in general with the proper scaffolding. Creating games serve as creative outlets for storytelling and sharing voices, leading to empathy. Increasing these two things–agency and empathy–are at the heart of our efforts in collaboration with our partners to reach diverse learners. We introduced learners to a number of game engines, often starting with Twine, a text-based Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style game creator but also including the more advanced 3D game creation engine, Unity 5, and others. Each setting had specific goals and served a particular audience.
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