KTIV News 4 Sioux City IA: News, Weather and SportsStudents take their love of video games to the next level

Students take their love of video games to the next level

Some West Middle School students are taking their love of video games to the next level by creating them.

42 students are staying after school to design video games from scratch to try to win the STEM Challenge.

It's an activity to encourage the use of science, technology, engineering and math in schools.

The students share their ideas about their projects.

"I'm doing 20 levels for my game and it's based off of bullying. To stop bullying because I believe it's a big issue especially in schools because kids get bullied every day so why not," said Beverly Beckner, 7th Grader.

"You can put any type of block you can use different characters for each level, you have variety of everything," said Beverly Beckner, 7th Grader.

"There's actually informers that walk around and once you go up to them some of them will say something about monsters and you have to kill them but others will say something about bullying," said Beverly Beckner, 7th Grader.

"My game is about surviving in the wilderness, collecting food," said Connor Foster, 8th Grader.

I wanted something that combined learning and having fun at that same time

"It starts off with when you are in a plane and the plane crashes on an island," said Connor Foster, 8th Grader.

And now we got to collect food and after that you have to defend yourself from all of the animals," Connor Foster, 8th Grader.

"This is all the script. All of this stuff over here is just to get the guy moving, " said Connor Foster, 8th Grader.

"It takes place on this icy, snow setting and then I made the background white so it would look like it was snowing," said Carlson Ayanlaja, 6th Grader.

"I'm right by the mountain right now. That's the mountain we made, said Carlson Ayanlaja, 6th Grader.

"We really have fun doing this," said Beverly Beckner, 7th Grader.

The students have been meeting three times a week since December to create their entries.

The final projects are due on March 12 and the winner of the challenge will have his or her game commercially published.