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Hey Mr. Jones, take a look at Construct 2, at: https://www.scirra.com/construct2

It's a very easy way to make a game with graphics and sounds, and a lot of built-in actions. Go through the first tutorial (it will take about an hour) and you'll see how it all works. If you look on their forums, you'll see that a lot of teachers use it with 11~13 year-old kids to teach game programming in a fun way. The free version is very generous, you can make a complete game and only use up 20% of the event limit.

If you happen to live in central Texas, Game Worlds runs Summer Camps in Austin that teach kids how to make games: http://gameworldscamp.com/

The kids mostly use Construct2 ( https://www.scirra.com/ ), though we also introduce them to Stencyl and Unity.

Full Disclosure: my wife is the owner and director of Game Worlds, and I've developed and taught a lot of the programming curriculum

There's one really nice easy-to-use 2D game system I've been learning recently called "Construct 2". It's for Windows, it's free to download and use at regular beginner levels (you have to pay if you start making games to sell). It has its own built-in language that guides you along. It's used in schools for kids about 10 to 12 years old, and it's great for anyone older too. The output from the system is HTML and Javascript, but you don't see (or need to know) any Javascript.

OP, if you go to https://www.scirra.com/construct2 you can get Construct 2, and then go through the tutorial at https://www.scirra.com/tutorials/37/beginners-guide-to-construct-2 and you'll see right away how it all works. It has so many built-in actions, like you can put a picture on the screen and give it 4-way motion, and detect when it hits something else, you can set other sprites in motion and put in sound effects, etc. Very simple to add things to your program, it's lots of fun! And there's an active forum if you have any questions. Good luck if you decide to try it!

There's one really nice easy-to-use 2D game system I've been learning recently called "Construct 2". It's for Windows, it's free to download and use at regular beginner levels (you have to pay if you start making games to sell). It has its own built-in language that guides you along. It's used in schools for kids about 10 to 12 years old, and it's great for anyone older too. The output from the system is HTML and Javascript, but you don't see (or need to know) any Javascript.

OP, if you go to https://www.scirra.com/construct2 you can get Construct 2, and then go through the tutorial at https://www.scirra.com/tutorials/37/beginners-guide-to-construct-2 and you'll see right away how it all works. It has so many built-in actions, like you can put a picture on the screen and give it 4-way motion, and detect when it hits something else, you can set other sprites in motion and put in sound effects, etc. Very simple to add things to your program, it's lots of fun! And there's an active forum if you have any questions. Good luck if you decide to try it!

That's a trap. The mobo comes with integrated intel, yes. But in most cases the end user also has a discrete card. You can guess which one is actually used.

Depends if its WebGL in a browser nvidia locks you to intel: Option to select the preferred graphics processor is greyed out for IE, Chrome, and Firefox. and https://www.scirra.com/blog/ashley/7/nvidia-hobbles-webgl-performance-on-laptops

Speaking as a current indie & AAA gamedev who has built game-related curriculum for 3 schools (middle school through college)...

Because of the diversity of student types (artist vs game designer vs programmer, etc...) I recommend teaching EPIC's Unreal Development Kit (UDK).
The tools are mature and will immediately offer something to every role on a game project.
As for yourself, the UDK uses Unrealscript which is based on a C++/C# syntax.
There is a wealth of knowledge via books and internet tutorials. (e.g., Just typed in "UDK tutorial" in YouTube and received over 4500+ results!)
A nice bonus is that learning UDK is something the kids can actually put on a resume and/or help them get an internship.

Milage will vary with other pre-built gamedev environments.
Below are a few all-in-one-solutions that have editing features, based in a Windows environment:

App Game Kit (AGK) - http://www.appgamekit.com/
Construct2 - http://www.scirra.com/construct2
Game-Editor - http://game-editor.com/
Game Maker - http://www.yoyogames.com/make
Game Salad - http://gamesalad.com/
Scratch - http://scratch.mit.edu/

Good luck!

I'm really liking Construct (http://www.scirra.com/construct2/) at the moment. It's an HTML5 game engine that's easy enough kids should be able to pick it up and it has the added bonus of being free for non-commercial use. If you want to see it's capabilities, I threw together a little game in around 5 hours of work to learn it's functionality and it turned out ok. You can view it here (http://jemjensen.com/caversrevenge/)

How about Construct, a free open-source game creator? It's got a GUI and drag-and-drop logic system based around events. Windows only right now though.

The problem is that they will not likely get a developer on board. Anyone that can sit down and write a game doesn't need help to do so.

Except in one case: You have the skill to make a 2D prototype of the design in Construct, The Games Factory, or even WarioWare DIY, but not to polish it as a native game.