Video Game Academy: a video game design camp near Paris

Mornings are given over to technical workshops, all feeding one game-design project that campers carry through the week. They get started with Game Maker, a free tool for building 2D games - mazes, snake, puzzle and platform games - and with RPG Maker, an intuitive editor for inventing the world and the scenario of a role-playing game. A Makey Makey circuit turns bananas, spoons, foil and pencils into a working games controller. A retro-gaming strand covers the titles that shaped the medium, played on original consoles and emulators alongside a Wii and a Nintendo Switch. A pixel art workshop ends with a bead artwork each camper takes home.

The stay price covers accommodation, meals, all activities and the included outing. Travel to and from the centre is the only supplement the operator prices separately: campers may be brought directly to the centre at no charge, or join a supervised group departure by coach, train or plane from a listed city.

The Magnanville holiday centre stands at the edge of town in the Yvelines, an hour from Paris, next to open fields and a large forest. Campers sleep in rooms of three to four beds with showers, with sanitary facilities close by.

Meals are provided at the centre and are covered by the stay price.

Beyond the workshops: a LAN party evening, where campers build a local network and run a tournament on the centre computers; free time on retro consoles; and a bowling outing.

The centre has activity rooms, outdoor space and a multisport pitch.

Supervision is one adult for every five children. Leaders are recruited with backgrounds in computing, web design, digital engineering and video game design, alongside strong activity-leading skills used to turn video games into live, full-scale games. The team runs a photo blog on a secure site so families can follow the stay day by day.