“I’m sure it is,” Nathan said with a shrug. But he didn’t sound like he meant it.
Allie ignored him. “It’s solid,” she told Ms. Slade. “It’s just that the competition is only five days away and I don’t want to jinx anything, that’s all.”
Ms. Slade smiled at her. “I totally get it, but it’s only a demo. You’re not inviting your whole advanced computer science class to download it or anything.”
Allie nodded. She knew Ms. Slade was right. But still, the idea of showing Click’d to her classmates made her ridiculously nervous; even more nervous than she was onstage back at CodeGirls camp.
Nathan combed his hand through his hair. “Well, I don’t know about her, but I’m ready to go.”
Allie squared her shoulders and looked right at him. “So am I,” she said, faking confidence more than feeling it.
“Great!” Ms. Slade clapped her hands together once. “I’ll do my usual first-day-of-school thing and then turn the show over to you two. Who wants to go first?”
“I’ll go,” they both said at the same time.
Ms. Slade reached into her drawer and pulled out a quarter. “Heads, Allie goes first. Tails, Nathan goes first.” She flipped it in the air and it landed with a thunk, spinning in small circles on her desk before it settled on tails. “Looks like you’re up first, Nathan.”
Nathan shot Allie a smug look and Allie glared at him.
When she turned to take a seat at her station, someone else was already sitting there, and Allie had to take the only desk that was still unclaimed. It was in the first row, right in front of Ms. Slade, and nowhere near the window. She couldn’t help but blame Nathan for that, too.
The bell rang. Ms. Slade stood silently at the front of the room, waiting for the chatter to stop. Eventually, when the room was quiet, she began speaking.
“Welcome back, everyone!” she said. “Did you all have an incredible summer?” Some people slouched lower in their seats, while others sat up a little taller. “I want to hear all about it. Who wants to start?”
A few hands shot up, and Ms. Slade spent the next ten minutes going around the room. Brandon told the class about his trip to Hawaii, Kari talked about spending most days at the skate park, and Justin talked about all the books he’d read. And when everyone was done, Ms. Slade told everyone how she spent two weeks in India visiting family and attending her favorite cousin’s wedding. She invited everyone to come into the lab during lunch that week if they wanted to see her pictures.
Allie was only half listening. She was thinking about her demo, visualizing how she’d do it without the voting app, and trying to ignore the butterflies that felt like they’d taken over her stomach.
Ms. Slade leaned back on the edge of her desk. “I’ll tell you about our new semester project, but first, I have some exciting news to share. Before I began teaching, I spent ten years as a developer at Spyglass Games. While I was there, I helped start the Games for Good competition, a contest exclusively for teen coders, and after I left the company, I stayed on as a mentor. Now each year, I get to bring one talented young developer into this contest. But this year, I convinced the judges to let me bring two students: Nathan Frederickson and Allie Navarro. As seventh graders, they’ll be the two youngest players to ever enter G4G. Today, they’re going to show you the games that got them there. Let’s give them a big hand.”
Everyone clapped as she waved Nathan to the front of the room. He paired his laptop with the giant monitor and a colorful icon of a house appeared in the center. A second later, two animated characters emerged from the sides of the screen, wearing overalls and shuffling toward the center carrying armfuls of letters. When they reached the house, the two characters threw the letters into the air. They looked up, watching them tumble around in the sky before settling on top of the house and forming the roof with the name BUILT.
“My Games for Good entry is a fun, interactive game where players work together to build homes—animated ones, and real ones, too.”
Nathan clicked on the icon, and suddenly there was a whole neighborhood, complete with streets, sidewalks, trees, and even a tiny playground off in the corner. Dotting the sidewalks were small, cartoonish-looking houses.
“The objective of the game is to build houses.” Nathan pointed to the screen, and Allie watched an animated woman in a blue sweatshirt and a white cap, standing on a ladder and hammering on the roof. “Each player starts off with some wood, basic tools, and a few supplies, like nails and plaster. But your original materials will only get you so far. When you run out, you have to buy more at the hardware store.” He pointed to a building on the corner. The little characters were running inside empty-handed and leaving with tools, boards, and cans of paint.
“You buy supplies using the points you earn, and you earn points by helping your neighbors.”
Nathan left-clicked on a character wearing a red sweatshirt and right-clicked on a house on the opposite side of the street. The little man climbed down from the ladder, tucked it under his arm, and carried it over to the target house. When he reached it, he propped the ladder against the side, climbed again, and began hammering next to another man wearing a blue sweatshirt.
Allie couldn’t get over the amount of detail in each character—different skin tones and hair colors, different clothes and hats. Aside from the way they moved across the screen, everything about them was designed to be unique.
She fixed her gaze on the tiny figure with a hammer in his hand and watched the house go up slowly, plank by plank. It started coming together faster once there were two characters working on it.
“Fun, right? But here’s where it becomes a game that also does good.” He zoomed out so the class could see the neighborhood from a bird’s-eye view. “It’s all about these signs.”
Allie hadn’t noticed them before, but now she saw the empty street signs and billboards scattered throughout the neighborhood.
“All the signs are reserved for corporate sponsors.” Nathan zoomed in on one and pointed at the logo. “I’m sure you all recognize this?”
Allie rolled her eyes. Of course they did. It was one of the most recognized logos on the Internet.
“Spyglass Games,” someone in the back yelled.
“That’s right. Spyglass isn’t an official Built sponsor,” he said as he locked his eyes on Allie, “but when I win, they will be.”