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When 12-year-old Katie Foti showed up for her first day of camp this summer, she thought she knew what creating a video game was all about.

鈥淚 thought it was just like, ‘You code some stuff, you make some art,鈥欌�� said the homeschooler from Brandon, Fla. 鈥淏oom 鈥� you鈥檙e done.鈥�

By the end of the three-week session, she had to admit: 鈥淚t’s not that simple.鈥�

Digital games, of course, have provided entertainment and comfort to millions during the pandemic. This summer, as young people took a much-needed break, educators turned to game design to provide a dose of critical thinking, planning, and project-based STEM work to students who have had little of any of this since the start of the pandemic.

The eight-year-old program, exclusively online for the past two years, takes the basic idea of coding, team-building, and design camps and adds a dash of girl power, bringing together young women who, by their own admission, are often the only girls they know who like video games. Most arrive at the first day of camp with limited coding experience and leave with a completed video game.

The idea originated with Laila Shabir, an MIT finance graduate whose experience growing up in the Middle East taught her that society鈥檚 expectations for young women can have a profound impact on how they see themselves as both students and professionals.

Born in Pakistan, Shabir spent her childhood in the United Arab Emirates, where her father worked as a laborer. She spent her formative years fighting against a bias in her own culture that discouraged women from getting an education. She recalled 鈥渏ust being constantly reminded and painfully aware of being a girl, and what kind of possibilities my life would hold.鈥�

But her parents valued education and urged her to work hard. From the time she was in second grade, she ran her own after-school homework help program for schoolmates. Her parents encouraged her to apply to top colleges in the U.S., and she ended up at MIT. She laughs now, recalling that she thought it was just another college. 鈥淲hen I was applying, I didn’t know it was that big a deal,鈥� she said.

Shabir earned a degree in finance, but found she was more interested in teaching.

While preparing to apply to a teacher prep program, she met her future husband, a mathematician who played the first-person shooter game Halo 鈥渟omewhat competitively,鈥� she recalled. 鈥淎nd I was just so shocked because if I ever talk to him, I would never, never assume that this is someone who’s so passionate about video games. He’s a mathematician. He talks about all these great concepts. And my idea of a gamer was your standard stereotype: living in mom’s basement.鈥�

They eventually hatched an idea for a company that would combine their talents to create educational games. But when they began recruiting employees, only male candidates applied. 鈥淚 was just like, 鈥業 don’t understand. I can’t be the only girl鈥欌�� interested in games.

She soon realized that, just like her experience with mixed messages about education growing up in the UAE, girls in the USA were hearing similar, more 鈥渟ubliminal鈥� messages about the games they loved.

A 鈥榮ocial experiment鈥�

Like many tech-facing fields, game development has from a dearth of female talent, for various problematic reasons: impossibly long hours, a male-dominated workforce that鈥檚 often hostile to women, and office cultures that turn a blind eye to sexual harassment.

In 2014, Shabir started Girls Make Games 鈥� as a kind of 鈥渟ocial experiment.鈥�

鈥淚 wanted to meet girls who identified as gamers and understand why they like games, or what could we do to get more girls interested in games,鈥� she said. They held three small sessions in California, Seattle, and Austin, Texas 鈥� with a total of about 115 girls.

That was eight summers ago. Since then, nearly 6,500 girls have completed the program, with about 20,000 using its online resources. Campers pay $1,000 for the three-week course, but the organization also provides need-based scholarships up to 100 percent of tuition. The camp boasts that it has never turned away an applicant.

Each year, Shabir typically picks another city to host the three-week camp, which tasks every girl, usually working in teams, with creating an original game.

The camp not only promotes a message of empowerment for girls but one that encourages them to think differently about games. Shabir urges campers to 鈥渢hink big鈥� about games and get to the essence of the games they love and why they love them. Each summer, she also brings in developers from big game studios and other 鈥渢op minds in the industry鈥� to serve as role models. The program鈥檚 unofficial motto takes the form of a question: 鈥淒oes the world need this game?鈥�

Most summers, campers collaborate to figure out the process of building characters, levels, and other elements, all within the confines of a prefab game engine. In the process they learn not only negotiation skills but how to use their devices 鈥� typically Chromebooks, iPads, and the like 鈥� for something more than just consuming media. But even now she fights against the stereotype of gamers as young men. 鈥淚t’s still a persistent problem,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he only place where they’re surrounded by kids who look like them is at Girls Make Games.鈥�

In the past, girls have occasionally signed up for the camp, only to drop out at the last minute with 鈥渢he jitters鈥� before the session begins. 鈥�They’re so sure that they’re going to be bad at it, because it feels like something that girls don’t do.鈥�

The answer: surround them with other girls who are 鈥渏ust as nerdy鈥� as they are and give them a place to indulge their love of games 鈥� as well as the space to work intensively on an original idea.

A few titles have even found modest commercial success: In 2019, a group of middle-school campers designed What They Don鈥檛 Sea, a marine-themed exploration game that has raised more than . Another, Interfectorem, also created by a middle-school team, is available on .

As with other educational efforts, the pandemic in 2020 forced Shabir to move the entire endeavor online. The move turned out to be a blessing in disguise, opening the program up to a global audience. Over the past two summers, about 2,000 girls have attended worldwide. This summer, students from 10 countries and 79 cities showed up, virtually all of them telling the same story of isolation and exclusion in their passion for video games.

Among them was Katie, the Florida homeschooler, who loves art, but, she realized, had a lot to learn about game design. Among her biggest challenges: making the game accessible for everyone, even players with disabilities 鈥� often accomplished by providing keyboard shortcuts or other methods to make the game playable, for instance, by players with visual, auditory, or motor challenges. 鈥淚 didn’t realize that was a thing you had to do,鈥� she said.

She also didn鈥檛 appreciate how hard it鈥檇 be to make the art look good. 鈥淚t’s really difficult,鈥� she said.

Shabir said many students arrive at camp with a great story idea 鈥渂ut there’s really no game to it.鈥� To turn it into a game, she said, they must impose a set of rules on their imaginary world.

Her experience this summer has made Katie think about game design as 鈥渟omething I want to do as part of my career,鈥� though she also might like to make a living on YouTube.

As a longtime homeschooler, Katie saw less of a disruption than most students last year, but the pandemic did knock out a beloved homeschoolers鈥� dance class that provided a rare opportunity for her to mingle with peers. There was a Zoom version, she said, but 鈥渋t was a little bit weird, though, because I had to do it in the middle of my living room.鈥� She skipped it.

Mostly the pandemic kept her and other local homeschoolers isolated and apart. 鈥淚 was stuck inside of the house with my brother,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd I’m pretty sure you can imagine that probably wasn’t fun.鈥�

When the camp鈥檚 three weeks were up, she had a game: Magical Plants, a farming game that she calls 鈥淪tardew Valley meets Animal Crossing meets Minecraft.鈥� Stardew Valley, while not as well-known as the other two titles, is an open-ended simulation game that allows players to grow crops, raise livestock ,and interact with characters in a fictional farm town.

鈥�I like peaceful games,鈥� she said, 鈥渁nd I feel like there are not enough of them out in the world yet. So I made another.鈥�

A 鈥榯hird space鈥� for play

Experts say game design scratches an important itch: Learning how games work not only makes young people better media consumers; it also gives them tools for understanding an important media form that will become increasingly more important in the future. They must learn not only about how games thrill us, but also how they shape our behavior 鈥� often for the developer鈥檚 benefit.

鈥淭o be literate in the 21st century is to really understand how those systems work,鈥� said Matthew Farber, an assistant professor of education at the University of Northern Colorado and founder of its .

Farber, who is also the author of the recent book , said many popular games replicate a key element that kids are missing: the kind of play that takes place during recess.

His 10-year-old son and the boy鈥檚 friends spent a lot of time this year in Minecraft, Farber said, and they hacked another digital tool to make it even more fun.

鈥淏ecause they were learning in Zoom, they sent each other Zoom links, and they would play hide-and-seek in Minecraft with the Zoom audio open,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o they were really using the tools themselves to create a 鈥榯hird space鈥� for play, because they couldn’t physically always go to each other’s houses and do things you would normally do in childhood.鈥�

That kind of innovation and self-expression, he said, is key to games. 鈥淩eally the goal is sharing with others,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd that is a lot of what Girls Make Games does.鈥�

As more female game designers enter the industry, Shabir said, the camp鈥檚 impact will be felt more widely. In fact, the camp has seen so much interest in young women wanting to enter the industry that it created its own fellowship program. Campers who age out of the program return as teachers.

Kaylah Derilus attended in 2015, the summer before her freshman year of high school in Durham, N.C. That year, the camp took place in its hometown of Raleigh, N.C., just a few miles away.

鈥淚t was really cool to see a lot of other girls playing games,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hat was the main thing that I took away from it 鈥� and the fact that I could actually make games, because I grew up with my uncles and my dad playing video games.鈥�

The experience prompted her to return the following year, and to take up coding. She never looked back. Now 19, Derilus is a rising junior at William Peace University in Raleigh, majoring in . She also taught at the camp this summer, and said her young students 鈥� most of them 8 or 9 鈥� needed one key thing: 鈥淪omeone who was always there.鈥�

Derilus took her summer office hours very seriously.

鈥淚 feel like online it’s very easy to tap out,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 saw with some of my professors, they were just like, ‘All right, we’re done.’鈥�

Derilus said she鈥檇 often stick around after class to take questions, 鈥渏ust to engage with them as well 鈥� just being there for them.鈥�

The past two summers have been a kind of watershed moment for the camp. Before Shabir and her colleagues made the jump to Zoom, reaching campers in 10 countries and 79 cities simply wasn鈥檛 an option.

Eight years in, Shabir often feels 鈥渢hat we just got started鈥� in her social experiment. 鈥淭here’s so much work to be done and there’s so many kids that need this.鈥�

Over the next couple of years, she said, her first few 鈥渇ellows,鈥� such as Darilus, who attended as middle-schoolers and taught younger students as high-schoolers, will begin graduating from game design programs themselves, starting careers as full-time developers 鈥� all because of a summer camp.

鈥淭here’s a couple that are going to start jobs next year,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e’re nearly there.鈥�

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