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A Decade of Creativity

As Digital Writes enters its tenth year, we look back on our most significant projects to celebrate our achievements, and especially the remarkable accomplishments of the people we’ve had the privilege to work with.

Binary: Decoded

In a model of mutually supportive collaboration, young people with diverse special educational needs, physical disabilities, and autism spectrum conditions, from various schools and home education settings, collaborated to create a Japanese-inspired interactive visual novel, which was then published on the Apple and Android app stores.

a fantastic opportunity for students to work with professional artists and game designers to stretch their technical and creative skills in ways thats’s very hard for me to do as a classroom teacher

Mr Mercer, Teacher, Crowdys Hill Special School

an insight into how an app would be planned and developed … invaluable experience working with industry experts

an accessible project and supportive environment for a diverse range of students

Ms Dare, Head of Media, Commonweal School

Sharing ideas. Generously collaborating.

The Sessions have been really, really good. I enjoyed working in a group with everyone.

Emily, Commonweal School

Designing a rich story with complex, interesting characters.

The sessions were amazing! . . . . I really enjoyed researching ideas. . . . . I really enjoyed creating characters.

Participants

Working with a professional artist to create and animate the illustrations.

I really enjoyed the drawing – its been really fun working with David.

Emily, Lydiard Park Academy

Working with professionals to write, perform, record and edit the dialogue and sound effects.

Working with a professional musician to write and record the music.

Working with our tutors to publish the game on Google Play and the Apple App Store.

The projects we do at school don’t mean much. It’s amazing we can actually produce something which will be for sale in the app store.

Emma, Commonweal School

Working with our marketing team to put on a public launch event.

Paper Dreams

In an artistically ambitious project, children from various primary schools and home education settings collaborated to create a Surrealism-inspired video game with a cutout-paper aesthetic, which was then published on itch.io.

It feels tons and tons more real than school work, because it’s going to be an actual game!

Maria, Shaw Ridge Primary

Studying Surrealism with a professional artist.

Sketching with a professional artist at the Tate Modern.

I felt like a professional. . . . . like actually being an adult . . . . a bit like being old enough to drive

Participants, Haydonleigh Primary

Working with a professional artist to create Surrealist art work.

It’s all our artwork and animation

Maria, Shaw Ridge Primary

all the effort drawing and designing belongs to all of us

Participant, Haydonleigh Primary

Working with our tutors to turn their art work into a video game.

Participants testing each other’s game levels.

We’re all excited to see the levels put together into the final game and get our friends to play it. Our friends are going to think it’s amazing.

Vicki, Shaw Ridge Primary

Working with our tutors, participants published their game on itch.io

surprised we managed to do it . . . . happy . . . . proud . . . . we’re going like “woah!”

Participants, Haydonleigh Primary

Working on the project has been great fun and very exciting.

Maria, Shaw Ridge Primary

Carniville

1 CarnivilleLogo

Young people from special and mainstream secondary schools in Swindon and Bath collaborated to create a creepy, supernatural video game with an intricate storyline.

It’s nice to do something kids don’t normally do …

… to make something with people with the same interests …

… to use professional software …

… to get to use your imagination and put together a good piece of work.

Rui, Toby, Mya, Ed, Lydiard Park Academy

Young people worked together to generate ideas and design the content of their game.

It’s good to get together with good friends and talk about this.

We basically made it all – all the ideas and stuff.

It’s good for someone to listen to your ideas so they understand what you mean and then see them come to life.

Ed, Mya, Will, Lydiard Park Academy

Young people researched images and created a mood board.

Researching and emulating art styles and drawing body elements to create a puppet.

Using Photoshop to fill the body parts with colours and textures.

Dogface: Animated character designed by Freya

I was afraid of the art and the animations, but it worked out pretty good.

Anish, Lydiard Park Academy

Working with a professional musician to make soundtracks.

Working independently using GarageBand.

The project has gone very successfully, and the game we made is very good.
I’ve enjoyed it so much.

I just wanna keep going for ever.

Rui, Will, Mya, Lydiard Park Academy

Folklore

folklore-ident-landscape

Theatre practitioners, who had been unable to practise their craft due to the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, came together to write and perform an audio drama, and broadcast it on Swindon Radio 105.5 and distribute it as a podcast.

Project participants came together to form an informal theatre company to make an audio drama based on Wiltshire myths, legends, mysteries and folklore.

They wrote the scripts, performed and recorded all the parts, all the sound effects and edited every episode.

They wrote, performed and recorded all the music.

Folklore was broadcast on Swindon 105.5 and is available as a podcast on the usual outlets.

A Moral Paradox

Young people are writing and illustrating their own interactive fantasy-adventure gamebook, which they will self-publish as a print book.

They have created a lovely story about an apprentice mage trying to find the home of a lost and lonely baby Dragon.

They have crafted a story with rich, complex characters, embracing diversity in both gender and relationships.

The Lost Manuscript of Callie Evernight

Young people from various schools and youth groups are working together to create a unique accessible reading experience for reluctant readers. This will come in the form a gamebook simulator – a video game that mimics a book, but has voice-over narration, animated illustrations, and even spooky 3D game sections to act as rewards for progress.

Each participant is writing their own chapter, starting with brainstorming ideas.

Other young people are drawing the illustrations.

To get the illustrations into the game, participants are digitising them and editing them in Photoshop.

White horse infected by The Corruption

They are animating some illustrations to bring the book to life.

Some groups had fun making their own spooky background atmosphere by using their voices and recording a performance as live.

The pupils had a huge amount of fun with all parts of the project – devising characters and backstories, drawing props and environments for the game, and making digital puppets and animating them.

Working with expert artists boosted their confidence, self-belief, and ability to work together and contributed to academic success in Y6.

Mr McCavera, St Mary’s Primary School

The project was so much fun. They are more confident in themselves, and they will always have a sense of belonging to something so amazing … when they were part of creating a game and how their ideas came to life.

Mrs Stein, Lydiard Park Academy

MoC Promo Picture May 2023

Our team of young game developers are doing the coding.

It’s quite challenging, but that doesn’t stop it being fun and exciting to see your own level coming together.

Isaac, Lydiard Park Academy