High school students create giant arcade games

Games designed by local high school students have made it to the big screen of Gap Filler’s giant, outdoor arcade system.

During the school holidays “Super Street Arcade” - which features an oversized joystick at the intersection of Tuam and High Sts in the central city coupled with a 5 metre high screen - is offering several new games designed by students from Burnside, Lincoln and Papanui High Schools.

Seven teams from Years 12 and 13 have created games as part of their Digital Technology class and Gap Filler’s Learning Outside the Classroom programme which began this year.

Super Street Arcade will be offering several games designed by local high school students these school holidays.

Supported by the Ministry of Education, the programme has seen students go from experiencing the Super Street Arcade for themselves to responding to a brief, creating and working on concepts, and presenting concepts to a panel of experts, including game developers CerebralFix and the Gap Filler team.

“We try out best to find authentic learning opportunities within our projects,” says Gap Filler Learning Facilitator Sally Airey.

It has been a thrill for the students to have real-world developers CerebralFix who have created games for Disney, as their mentors, she says.

“What a cool experience for the students to take a concept and develop it and with feedback from game developers and others, create a game that they can see being played on the street by strangers - along with the credits they have earned towards NCEA they have also created a fun experience for the people of Christchurch.”

Since March, the students have been refining and testing their games until they were ready to be loaded on to the Super Street Arcade System.

The best games, as determined by feedback and how well they fulfil the original brief, will be able to be played by members of the public for three days each across the current school holidays. To see the games that are currently being played on Super Street Arcade visit the Facebook page. 

Nadia Thorne, Head of Studio at CerebralFix says not only are the students learning game craft, they are learning how to deliver software projects as a team. “We're blown away by what the students have achieved, they're tackling quite complex technical and design challenges and smashing it." 

Super Street Arcade was installed last December and is the world’s first giant, outdoor arcade game system. So far, it has hosted Attack of the Clones, Space Raiders and now the student games. It has been played nearly 125,000 times.

Gap Filler is an urban regeneration initiative that facilitates a wide ranger of temporary projects and events in the city.