Here we go: the first club evening at KuBa West 🎒🚀

September 2, 2026

Today was the day: our game-development club at the Kurfürst-Balduin Realschule plus in Trier West has its first evening behind it. Before we tell you how it went, a thank-you first: that this club can take place at KuBa at all is thanks to a very dedicated head teacher and the extremely kind support of the school's IT lead. Thank you both! 🙏

Just before the start: stage fright. Justus, Verena and I were honestly quite nervous once I had booted the first machines in the computer room. Will the PCs cooperate? Will anyone even show up? And then the first kids arrived, and from one second to the next everything was relaxed.

The tech: well. We already knew from our preparation visit that the computer room isn't the youngest. Today confirmed it: not all of the PCs there are really usable. For one club member the evening basically consisted of testing PCs: four machines in a row were not really up to running the game – and no, the game is honestly not a resource hog … Still: in the end everyone got to know the game and was thrilled. Enthusiasm beats hardware.

First goal: get to know the game and say honestly what's what. That is exactly what we announced, and exactly what we did. Play first, then feedback. On two channels: fully analogue with feedback sheets on paper, and directly in the game through the built-in feedback feature. Justus explained that one to the other kids up front at the projector: how to open it and what to write in there. I admit I was a pretty proud dad in that moment. And the feature got plenty of use afterwards. Our inbox was fuller this afternoon than after some releases.

And then the ideas. If we underestimated one thing, it was this: everyone was bubbling over with suggestions for what could still go into the game. More animals, secret places, entirely new story lines or game mechanics. A lot of it we would never have come up with ourselves. That is exactly why we run this club. A game shaped by the kids who play it.

What happens now. Tonight we go through all the sheets, the paper ones and the in-game ones. Not everything will be implemented one to one; some ideas need to be scaled down or call for follow-up questions. Every kid gets an answer to their suggestion. And the first club kids have already made it into the credits of the next release. Whoever gives feedback that ends up in the game is named in the credits. That was our promise, and we keep it.

For me that now means: translating the kids' wishes into clean work orders for our AI and getting them built. How that rhythm works for us, we described in detail a few days ago. Afterwards everything gets checked once more together with Justus, because whether something feels good is still decided by a human. And at the next club session the kids can see for themselves what became of their ideas and tell us whether it fits. Feedback, implementation, review by the people who asked for it.

Looking ahead to next week. At the next meeting we will invent new animals and plants for the game together. Or we let ourselves be surprised by the topics the kids bring along. After today we are pretty relaxed about that.

Want to join? The club remains open to all grades, registration forms are in the school office, and all the info is on our club page.

Thanks to everyone who came today. See you next Wednesday!

Justus, Verena and Marcel