At Kodecoon Academy, we are proud to have a wide variety of holiday camps available for your child during the holiday seasons. With a curriculum that has a focus in game design and development, something that is different from our usual regular programs, our students’ top favourites are our Minecraft Game Design and Roblox Game Design camps.
Roblox, with its average monthly active user count of 164 million and Minecraft, with an average monthly active user count of 126 million, are without a doubt incredibly successful for their own unique gameplay and game style. We’re here to give you a brief insight as to what these games are all about.
Basis of the Platforms
Both games are “sandbox games” which are classified as a type of game that gives much creative freedom for each player to go about different tasks or goals. Instead of the usual focus of linear gameplay and the primary objective to pass different levels, “sandbox games” provide players the freedom to explore and create worlds that help promote creativity and teach students critical thinking, problem-solving and independent self-direction in decision making.
What is Minecraft?
The appeal of Minecraft lies in the fact that it can be fit to any child’s interest. From designing the architecture to mining and crafting materials to help in surviving and fighting against monsters, to farming vegetables, they can do it all on Minecraft! With various game modes available, there is the limitless creativity and playing potential in Minecraft.
At Kodecoon Academy, our students primarily use the Creative Mode to learn about different commands to design and create their own game! They will get to exercise their creativity and develop 3D spatiality through pixel art, blueprint design, and game design architecture!
What is Roblox?
Roblox entered the gaming scene later than Minecraft but similarly, is taking the world by storm. In fact, in 2021, it even went public and is worth more than $45 billion. In essence, Roblox is a collection of games that are built on the Roblox platform by players, with moderation and oversight done by the Roblox development team. With new games created and added constantly, it allows players to continuously have different playing experiences and exchange different ideas of game design!
So, should my child learn Minecraft or Roblox?
Now that you have some basic insight on what these two platforms are, let’s check out how each platform illuminates potential STEAM learning opportunities!
Strong, Supportive Communities
Both Minecraft and Roblox have their own supportive community for tutorials, forums, and general inquiries for the game. This means that there are always new ideas and feedback that come from the community to give back to the game. From original resources to tips and tricks, there are channels and opportunities for like-minded individuals to come together and build something greater.
Such peer learning communities not only provide a kind of positive reinforcement for learning, but students who are united by a common goal are also more motivated to encourage one another to keep learning and persevering through challenges!
From Simple Design to Complex Coding
Students start from game design and progress on to game development through our progressive levels of Minecraft and Roblox holiday camps.
For example, students get to learn about “Redstone”, a seemingly simple mechanic in the Minecraft game that works similar to circuits in the real world. The concept of “redstone” can help players to understand the basics of coding as the mechanics of redstone is like that of binary code.
Intermediate to advanced students can also proceed on to syntax programming for our Roblox programs, learning how to code in Lua! With tremendous potential for design, Lua is a widely-used favorite within the gaming industry.
Kickstart learning with students’ passions!
Play is intrinsically motivating. When we encourage our students’ playful exploration through these platforms, we see our students’ increased engagement and motivation to be more self-directed in terms of learning. Minecraft and Roblox give our children the agency to pursue tasks that are personally meaningful – from creating their own virtual worlds in Minecraft to designing the most challenging Roblox Obby obstacle to overcome.
By understanding the worlds of Minecraft and Roblox, we hope you are now more equipped to encourage your child to be more creative and transform their screen time into potentially a design passion project, or even kickstart a coding journey!