AMD Releases Social Issue Games-Focused Toolkit

AMD announced today the availability of Let the Games Begin: A Toolkit 4 Making Social Issue Games. The Toolkit facilitates the creation of serious game applications focusing on topics such as energy consumption, poverty, health, and environment issues. Let the Games Begin guides students through many critical steps in the game design process, covering topics ranging from concept to funding to distribution. The Toolkit is produced by the serious games support network Games for Change, with assistance from AMD's Changing the Game initiative. Changing the Game is a youth-focused program that equips disadvantaged students with the tools necessary to create serious games, in order to promote critical education and the learning of life skills. The initiative has previously provided support to nonprofit organizations such as Girlstart, Global Kids, and the Institute for Urban Game Design. "AMD Changing the Game has created excellent opportunities for students to express their views on the world while learning important life skills through the experience of creating digital games," said Allyson Peerman, president of the AMD Foundation. "The Let The Games Begin toolkit is an important resource to inform and educate organizations that are interested in using games as a medium for communicating about important social issues." Let the Games Begin: A Toolkit 4 Making Social Issue Games is available as a free download from Games for Change's website. Included with the program are several example social games applications, along with a series of video presentations by game design experts.