BELLINGHAM — If you walk into one of Sehome High School’s morning computer classes, don’t be surprised if you see dozens of students focused on grim reapers, dragons and ninjas zooming across their screens.
No, the students aren’t goofing off and avoiding classwork. This is their classwork. They’re creating new video games as part of the multi-high school Video Game Design course.
The course is part of the Whatcom Tech Prep Consortium, a program designed to help high school students countywide identify career goals and get a head start on them while still in high school. There are three inter-high school courses — Health Care Services, Construction Careers Academy and Video Game Design — and several other courses offered in individual high schools.
In the design course, students learn all aspects of creating games, from programming to illustrating to writing the storyline to sound effects. The final project is spending eight weeks in small groups creating a video game that is shared with friends and family and may even be popular enough that it’s played by students.
“That is the game many are here for,” said Jennifer Styer, who teaches the course with Jonathan Fleck. “They have in the back of their minds the whole time who they want to work with and what they want to do.”
Students in the yearlong course meet for two hours every morning, regardless of their school or class schedule. Lynden High junior Luke Adams doesn’t get back to his home school until halfway through the second block period of the day, but it’s worth it for the “computer guru” who hopes to attend the University of Advanced Technology in Arizona.
“I learned I really can program,” the 17-year-old said. “The logic and stuff just clicks.”
Many of the games are in the style of Nintendo’s “Mario Bros.” games, with characters running across a scrolling multi-layered background. But even if the style is similar, the ideas behind the games are always unique.
“Seeing the creativity of the kids, it’s never the same,” Styer said.
This year, three students are taking the class for the second time and are spending the whole year creating a game called “Destined Warriors,” a sequel to the game they created last year.
The game is essentially three games in one, allowing players to choose a character and story to follow. The characters are based on the three creators — Luke DeSalvo from Bellingham High, Eric DePoppe from Meridian High and Hidoaki Harada from Sehome High — and the storylines overlap, giving someone who plays all three characters a chance to learn secrets about the game.
Harada, who learned how to speak English by playing “Final Fantasy VIII,” said he likes creating video games because it offers him an outlet for all his interests.
“You can tell a great story, put whatever clothes on (the characters) you want, you create art and you get to share it with people,” he said. “This is where I escape to.”