Coding for Girls: Design Your Own Adventure Game

Embark on an epic journey through the exciting world of programming! In this introductory camp, you will learn how to create your own adventure game using basic game mechanics. Our experienced instructor provides a supportive and engaging environment where students can thrive, foster critical thinking and explore creativity. In this camp you will learn how to code and script-program your own 2D games using Inkscape and Godot. Design your own hero, create your own world and choose your adventure.

When and Where?

Monday August 18 - Friday August 22, 2025.

1:00 - 4:00pm.

Location: The Vancouver Independent School for Science and Technology (VISST) - 1490 West Broadway,Vancouver, BC.

Who?

This camp is for girls and non-binary students going into grades 5-8.

Why should you attend?

Earn a certificate of completion from the Vancouver Independent School for Science and Technology.

Try something you won’t find in school that combines coding and video game art.

Build something you can share with your friends and family.

Exercise both the left and the right side of your brain by learning to code and designing your own fantasy world.

What will you learn?

Hello World!: We will start with an Introduction to coding using Inkscape and Godot. Students will start designing their own heroes. They will also program simple character movements.

A-mazing World!: With heroes to work with, students can now start crafting their own worlds for their heroes to explore. They will learn how to set up tilemaps and generate a custom maze for their heroes to navigate through.

Level Up Graphics: Students will spend more time on the graphical side of game design and level up their game’s aesthetics, starting with their heroes. They will transform their heroes from a simple circle to whatever vision they have for them.

Look Out!: Every adventure has hazards and hurdles to avoid and overcome. Students will come up with their own idea on what hazards to introduce into their game’s world.

Ka-ching!: Every adventure should have a purpose. Students will decide what the purpose of their game is and what rewards their heroes should get to move their adventure along.

Timers and Scores: How do we know how many points we have? How long do we have to escape our mazes? Students will learn how to set up global variables that can communicate information from one game element to another.

Lives and Game Over: What happens when we run into too many hazards? Typically the adventure ends. We will end the current adventure and start again from the beginning. Students will spend some time creating their own “game-over screens” to indicate the end of an adventure and to reload the player into a new game should they choose to restart.

Audio and Final Polishes: What’s a game without audio? Sound effects and background music will be added as finishing touches to really bring the adventure to life.

Play with Friends: Students will be able to export their games into playable formats that can be uploaded online.

Program Requirements

Students should bring their own laptops (and don’t forget your mouse and charger).

Students should try to install and test the free “Godot” and “Inkscape” prior to the camp.