Gamedev Summer Course Plan - Looking for feedback

General
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Hi everyone,

I run a small science and technology academy in a town in Spain. Our main activity is tutoring students (ages 14–18) in subjects like math, physics and chemistry.

In my town there are many extracurricular activities for kids (sports, music, art, etc.), but nothing related to programming or technology, so one of my goals is to slowly introduce those options.

This summer I want to run my first GameDev course using Godot, and I’d love some feedback from people with more experience.

Course format

Looking at other local summer activities, the course would run for 3 weeks, about 2.5 hours per day.

Each day would be split roughly into:

  • First half: theory / new concepts

  • Second half: exercises or implementing features in the game

Week 1 – Introduction to Programming (GDScript) (No longer in Python)

The idea is to first teach students how to think like programmers before jumping directly into Godot.

Topics would include:

  • Variables

  • Conditionals

  • Loops

  • Functions

  • Simple state machines

Exercises would already be framed in game logic, for example:

“If the player gets hit, they lose one life. If lives reach 0 → game over.”

The goal is to build the mental model before working inside an engine.

Week 2 – Building the Base Game (Godot)

Students would build a simple 2D platformer with guided steps.

Topics:

  • Player movement / jumping / collisions

  • Level building

  • Enemies, hazards, game over

  • Basic UI (lives, coins)

  • Simple game logic (collect key → open final door, restart after death)

If needed, I’d provide base project files and let them fill in the missing parts.

Week 3 – Expansion & Creativity

Once the basics are working, the last week becomes more creative and collaborative.

Ideas:

  • Main menu / pause menu UI

  • Design and implement a new enemy or mechanic in small groups

  • Modify character or enemy sprites

  • Demo day: students present their game and unique features

I’m also thinking about uploading the games to itch.io under the academy name so they can show their work afterwards.

Any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

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I love the idea, so wholesome!

Why Python and not GDScript right away? The syntax is similar, but distinct enough that it might be confusing for beginners to later switch to GDScript syntax. Mentioning that it’s similar to a popular Python is fine, but teaching I believe should be based on GDScript.

Spend some time teaching them how to properly use the Godot Docs. It’s an underrated skill that comes very handy. If all people could just read the docs properly, we’d have 90% less topics on this forum.
Ideally, every introduced concept should be more or less based on some Docs pages.

Maybe make it a game jam style? I think it would be fun to make groups and let them collaborate on a game. At the end you can host a showcase day, potentially with some rewards etc.

Definitely do that. Having a tangible result of their work that they can later show at home to their family and friends will be a cherry on top.

I’d love to see how it turns out, keep us posted!

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First, thank you for your answer. I wanted to summarize my post a bit, and I might have skipped some details so as not to bore the readers. I will try to answer or open a debate on some points I find interesting.

This one is tricky. It comes from 2 ideas I might have mixed. Originally, the idea was to offer a 1 week programming course + 2 week game dev. Being summer and all, maybe some people just wanted to attend to programming, or whatever. That’s when I was set on using Python as an approachable language, and then jump to GDScript. Now, it’s true that I commited to a full 3 week course, and sure, from my point of view, with a background on Computer Science, I understand that the language is not what’s important here, I just want to convey the basics of programming so they can later understand what they are doing, but it’s also true that for a new user, changing languages might be confusing, even when they are so similar. I’ll definitely think about it.

Yes, I’d ideally guide them with my notes and relevant Godot Docs. During the exercise phase, make them search around Godot Docs to solve some problems. I’m quite an old-school programmer, I believe in the power of documentation; I’ll try to pass that to them.

100% what I had in mind. Week 3 probably best in groups and each group gets to design an enemy, feature, modify stuff… I’ll see exactly how much depending on the number of students and how quickly they catch up. Week 3 schedule is quite relaxed because I’m not sure how much time each of my ideas would take, maybe I need 2 days for enemy design and implementation. All in all, it’s the first year I’m doing this, I have to see how it works.

And yeah, last day showcases 100% too. About the rewards, I’m actually quite penniless (just opened the academy this year, few months ago, all my money went there), but I was thinking some t-shirts or Godot plushies or something like that. Not very high on my priority list, but I’ll definitely give it a thought when I have the time.

I was also thinking of making a build with all their games in a launcher, so they can have all their creations. And then Itch.io page linked to the academy’s profile, it’s cool for them as they can show their creation everywhere, and for my academy, people can see proof of my previous courses.

Pretty hyped with this, I wanted to add science and tech-based extracurricular activities for young people here, gamedev, Arduino, Webdev… See how it works during summer and try to introduce it little by little during the school year too.

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Well, I just opened the academy and I thought requiring them to bring their own laptop.

I just finished the works and paperwork of the academy few months ago and my available cash is quite low, but I’ve seen a place close to mine that works with refurbished PCs, some kind of second-life, sustainable hardware ideas, and I’m in the talks with them maybe I could get some PCs for the students.

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Your course sounds very good, a nice structured approach. The problem I would address is that 14-18 year olds will be excited to actually make something they can play. You might be surprised at how far they may also customise their own games in their own time. So my only advice would be to get some fun in there early. Perhaps on day 1, do a quick intro talk about game engines and what they do, then give them the docs for the 2D game example, and let them get on with it.

Day 2, let them finish or extend by creating their own art for the 2D demo. Day 3 you can get down to gdscript and your course, but start with something to really engage them.

That is all very well and good, and theoretically the right idea, but they want to get busy with a game. Once they have done the demo, scratched their head at this and that, asked ‘how do I get this to happen’ etc, then you have at least a headspace in which to start creating mental models.

And don’t even mention python IMHO, start with gdscript and stay with it.

It sounds like a really fun project though, I hope it goes well for you.

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Don’t start with Python. You’ve got a very short amount of time. Teach the concepts using GDScript. While the languages are similar, they are not the same. Teaching them how to do these things in Godot will also be cool. You can teach them how to use print_rich() with colors and other BBCodes.

This is a huge time sink, but is also a lot of fun. I would make this the end of the session, and make sure everyone gets here by the end of the first hour.

IMO this is a waste of time with the small amount of time you have. Just make sure they can start the game and restart it when they die by reloading the scene.

Teach this in week 2, and perhaps even tell them about itch so they can already be looking for sprites options.

You could make this more collaborative by having them work as teams from the beginning. Either small teams, or one big team, and each person makes a level. If you create a level script beforehand that handles getting the player from level to level, then it’ll be easy for them to just add levels in. (I do this by having a dedicated folder, and just loading all the levels in the folder. This allows level designers to drop levels into the folder and test without any interaction from me.)

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Please tell them not to use AI when they are trying to solve a problem. It takes away their problem solving skills and creativity.

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That is a great idea! Especially since it gets them designing games without all the potential pitfalls and headaches of all the groundwork needed for making a game, like controllers, world building, etc. Perhaps a simple platformer game. For the younger children this might be fantastic.

I suppose it depends on the abilities of the children. Only you can know that for sure. I think the first reason people fall in love with programming is because of what they can get machines to do with it. The love of coding just for coding I think comes later. It’s alot like maths like that. You rarely find kids that love maths, even if they are good at it. It is only later that maths becomes something beautiful in itself.

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I agree with the idea to start with Python to remove the engine from the picture at the beginning and show the kids the basics of running from command line and printing things out. But others are right that it’s a too short of a time to change languages. So maybe a good compromise would be to go with: https://gdscript-online.github.io/. After a week of that, switching to the actual engine will be much smoother than coming from Python.

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Yes, many people suggested that. I think I will teach the programming basics in GDScript inside Godot, so they can start familiarizing themselves with the environment.

I can build a simple program with labels and such and leave some space blank so they can fill their code there and see the program react.

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Yes, I will do that. I wanted to do some Python courses separately, then the project combined, and it ended up like this as the first concept, but I see now, for such a short time is better to keep it the least confusing as possible.

My idea for this, I’d build and give to them a prepared tileset. and they get to place their tiles for their map. I don’t have the time to cover the whole thing, so I’ll let them just build the level with the tools I give them, jump goes there, coins go here, enemy here, etc.

I hear you, my idea was to work with UI just a bit so they can see how it works, so I thought a simple Start menu: “new game, exit”. For them to work even very briefly with that, then pause menu would be a simple popup pressing ESC, “restart level or exit game”. Nothing fancy, they get to work with menus a little.

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thank you, yeah, 100% doing that.

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First thank you for your helpful response, this is great to shape the course for the better, about this:

I’m still not sure how many students, what age range, and what skill range they will come. Few may have cursed “IKT” optional subject in school that teaches them basic programming, others might not. For now, about groups or teams, I’ll decide during week1, when I can already know if there’s a reasonable way to group them.

A lot of things are new trials here, I’ll try to have a solid base plan and several contingency plans depending on the final group of students.

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For sure, I teach Maths and other science classes during the school-year, I always tell them to try and solve them by themselves. My idea is to make them look up the Godot Documentation if they are stuck and if it’s a logic problem, expand it to the group, since I guess they all will be new to programming and probably will help the whole group.

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Well good luck with it. And please come back and let us know how it went. We would love to know.

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I will, I don’t know how it’ll be received, being a relatively small town, new academy, first year offering this course… attendance might be low, I know this, I’m cautiously hopeful.

Whatever happens, I’ll not be discouraged for this first year reception and try to offer it again next year, learning from my mistakes (dates, time, cost…). We’ll see.

Anyway, I’ll report back or even come again when I work more on the content to ask for feedback. You all have been really helpful, I’m so glad I decided to ask for feedback here.

Thank you all, really, it means a lot.

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I would look at how FlowLab do their tutorial, it takes something through how to build a simple platformer. The idea is you have a working ‘game’ is a very short period of time. You can then look more in-depth into topic around the completed ‘game’. The advantage of this approach is that it removes the scared to touch issue and starts learners to start taking ownership over their learning journey. I can’t think of anything worse at hearing a lecture on python if I can’t immediately see how that moves my ‘game’ forward.

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