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Teaching Kids to Make Games?
FreakerSFX asks: "My son has shown an avid interest in video games like most kids his age. What's different now is that he insists that he wants to learn how to build his own game. He's 9 and fairly gifted from a mathematics and computer standpoint and certainly capable of learning basic programming. What tools/books are recommended for a neophyte computer game programmer?" I remember one of my first exposures to computer languages was Logo,
which was a language that seems perfectly suited to young children. There is a Windows version available here that seems like it would be perfect for the development of simple games, especially for youngsters. What languages, and language resources, are you aware of that might be suitable for youngsters with an interest in creating games, and learning programming?
Assembly. Yup. Definitely Assembly.
*flame suit on*
Since I don't know too many nine year olds, I can't fathom what games they're playing (Pokemon still? Yuyu Hashuko?), but my suggestion is to first control his expectations. What I mean is, you should be aware that even though he is gifted in math and has an interest in programming, that he won't be able to recreate Max Payne 2 or WarCraft III. Or even Pokemon on the GBA. That simply requires money. Some of the simplest games like Tetris aren't instantly easy to program.
Deep breath.
With that out of the way, I'd suggest writing a text only RPG or something like that. You can learn a lot about how games work coding up MUDs and such, and you don't have to worry about making the eye candy to go with it. When I was nine I coded up a mud in Basic (of course that was in the late 80's but whatever). Once you've got a fairly fun text RPG, you can try making it into a 2d world (a la Zelda) which wouldn't be too hard to implement.
I realize I haven't answered your question about programming languages and websites mostly because that usually leads to flame wars ("Nu uh! Ruby/VBA/C++ Rocks! Python/C/Java Sux!"), but if he's try interested in programming a game, I think a mud is a good place to start. I have a preference for Python, so you may want to check out pygame.org as well.
I was in a school program that taught us BASIC in 3rd grade. We were all writing 500+ line BASIC programs by the time we were done with it. Pascal and C came later. It seems like a more natural approach. Though, in those days, Pascal wasn't something to laugh at.
...
here is a little blurb from their page!
purebasic
(stolen from DaBum) I am dyslexia of borg - your ass will be laminated.
I learned programming by typing in code from books like "100 BASIC Computer Games" and so on. David Ahl's books, Compute!, and the like.
I don't see why a kid today can't type in a page of BASIC code out of a book. Once he sees the structure and gets the idea of how things fit together in a logical flow, the next steps should fall into place naturally.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Everything that needs to be done, can be done with C. Done.
I haven't seen the Shoot-Em-Up Construction Kit for a while, but that was great on the Amiga.
Give him a floppy with bootnet.img on it and an old computer with an unformatted hard drive and tell him to have at it. At least, that's what my dad would have done.
It is very important to use the carrot instead of the stick approach. First, get him the most advanced workstation you can afford as well as a 21" monitor minimum. Make sure he takes plenty of breaks, and when he does well, reward him with something nice like a trip to the zoo or a soothing massage. Above all, have fun TOGETHER!
------
Michael Jackson
Best Windows Freeware
Why don't you start him on mods, scripts or skins of a game he already plays? A non-trivial (i.e. attractive and fun) game is going to be hard for him to build from the ground up.
An addition to a game (even if it's just putting Pokemon artwork on someone's armor) is more bite-sized.
Joe
http://www.joegrossberg.com
I guess it depends on his attention span.
If he can already code, then probably he's best off with a language/platform reference that isn't too dry, and lots of example code that other have written so he can get a feel for how people put programs together.
Let me pull out my walking stick and reminisce about the Old Days (programmers with a longer history are of course free to run over me in their wheel chairs.) BASIC on something like the VIC20, Apple II or C64 was a great learning environment: immediate feedback from the language and well documented guides to the Operating System were readily available. Hacking in 6502 assembly was also pretty straightforward. In this sort of environment, where there were also many available printed books containing code for games that you could type in, learning how to code your own games in BASIC or assembly was almost inevitable.
So my suggestion is to try and recreate a similar environment in today's world!
Oh, another point: start small. Before jumping into some huge ambitious project that will never get finished, encourage him to start with warm-ups. eg: for basic game structure and AI write a naughts and crosses program. Start with a dumb version that uses text, and gradually embellish it to use graphics and make it a learning AI. Then perhaps try something like a real-time lunar-lander variant, to get the hang of non-turn based game structure. To get familiar with graphics and sound, encourage him to try writing graphics demos (start small, with a spinning cube or somesuch) or a simple music composition program. The latter would also help to learn about more complicated user interfaces.
You might take a look at BYOND (Build Your Own Net Dream). It has a simple tile-based graphics engine, an object oriented language that is easy to learn, and automatic networking so you don't have to do any extra work to get multiplayer games. And it's completely free to download and use.
We've had a number of kids around the junior high age get involved and create their own games using BYOND. For most of them, it's their first introduction to real programming, and serves as a great springboard for getting into more advanced languages like C++ and Java. In fact, the success in that age group has almost become a problem -- the community is swarming with young adolescents and we adults feel like a minority there sometimes. We're even thinking of pushing it as an educational tool somewhere down the line...
Browse around at some of the games listed on the games site to get an idea of the system's capabilities. You won't be making first person shooters, but it could be just right for someone your son's age. Puzzle games and RPG/adventure style games do particularly well in BYOND. Once you've downloaded the client (Downloads link, obviously), you can even connect to any games that are currently online. Just beware the ones in the Unpublished section - they may or may not be up to snuff, and may be hosted by immature 13 year olds looking to be rude.
Then take a look at the programming guide and jump in to see if it will work for you. I'm not sure if 9 years old is too young for this, but your son sounds very smart, so he may pick it up just fine. Good luck!
Say hello to zMac.
Python and Pygame. Python is not only easy to learn but also a powerful real-world programming language. It might not be quite as ideal for a 9 year old as languages/environments designed to be more playful and task-specific, but it's probably the best "real" language out there for the application. Besides, from what I've heard, a lot of people learned Basic around 9 or so and Python is definitely easier (if not to grasp the basics of then at least to do anything useful with) than Basic :)
I was just looking into text only games [Interactive Fiction] recently for the first time in a looooong time. I found some fun ones that were done in the TADS language which is apparently made just for that. The site I downloaded the runtime environment from also had a compiler. Check out tads.org For some background. I think an IF game is a perfect starter for a kid.
trySiMPLE
Tell your child that he needs to learn and learn fast. Tell him that he is in danger of being replaced by an Indian child that you are thinking about adopting. Calmly explain to him the economic benefits of having a child in India as opposed to in your own home (less cost for food, housing, etc.) If you can explain all this in words that he understands, I think you will be amazed at the progress he will make.
... by hacking into the school computer and changing their grades!
I first started using a computer when I was 8 (1986), when the government provided all schools with Thomson comps (6809 processor, 1 Mhz) processor. If I remember correctly, there were four languages available: basic, assembly, forth and logo.
Logo was too simple and limited to be interesting.
Basic (MS Basic 1.0) was easy, and the interpreter made it a hands-on, "sandbox", experience. I don't think I would have been hooked by a compiled language back then. On the other hand, it's pretty limited and what is learned with basic won't help much later.
Assembly was hard, especially because a single mistake meant a complete reload from the tape. Tweaking routines into basic programs was interesting, though, as was disassembling the available games and deciphering the code.
Forth was mainly "wow" but I never really got to fully use it, since unlike basic, the documentation coming with the machines was scarce. But I still think it's simple enough to be an interesting starting point for a child.
On the other hand, if you want your child to stay clear of computer programming for the rest of his life, show him C, perl or ADA first: Satisfaction guaranteed.
Has anyone done a modern version of 101 BASIC Games?
That said, you may want to start by working with some realistic expectations. Does you son understand the sheer amount of work necessary to do the games that he probably plays? Does he understand that the first few games that he does are likely to be very simple in nature? When my wife started learning how to program, she was an avid user and excited about the possibility of becoming a programmer. She was dissapointed at how a full day of working could only produce trivial little DOS programs that were nothing like the apps she used. Unfortunately I wasn't able to better set her expectations and she ended up frustrated with programming and hasn't seriously looked back at it. Today she has a much better view of what it takes, but that first time experience still keeps her from making any serious headway...
As for ideas, start with simple things first. E.g. simple screen saver type animations on the screen that can be brute forced. This gives good visual feedback without concern over input processing or timing. Move on to simple role based games where the program can wait for input from the user before acting on it. E.g., board games (connect-4, tic-tac-toe, etc.), simple D&D type games, etc. It's probably worth getting WarGames on DVD to show that real systems/big games did look like that at one time. If you have an emulator of a 8bit PC (Commodore/Apple2), try to show some older games that were interactive like that. From there, look into adding graphics (e.g. Myst). At this point, he'll probably be ready for making the leap to a action game that requires concern for real time keyboard/mouse/joystick input and live screen updates.
Being a dad, I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but be ready to spend a lot of time helping him with it. Those first few debugging sessions are going to be really frustrating...
Best of luck with this endeavor.
You could also take a look at Macromedia Flash. They have a usable scripting language and you can draw or import graphics and sounds from elsewhere.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
He might be interested in modifying existing games or game engines. That is, he can start by modifying game content instead of starting from scratch writing programs.
You can create your own levels and such for many state-of-the art titles. It's challenging and rewarding. Some people get into the industry this way.
There are many games/engines that can be modified.
Garage Games took this mod idea in an interesting direction by taking the technology used for Tribes 2 and marketing it as an engine for a small fee. The fee is higher than the Tribes 2 price but you get more for your money.
Jesus saves....And takes 1/2 damage.
I know you said he wants to make games, but start him out on other sorts of programming that are fun but also much more instant-gratification-esque. I would suggest one of the many games where you can program robots/tanks/gladiators/etc, specifically Robot Battle, C++ Robots, or Core Wars. If he is still interested in programming, get a copy of DarkBASIC for him, its a great way to get started programming good looking 3D games (skip the textual stuff, its just as good to learn with 3D apps and a lot more gratifying and fun).
Consider the Squeak environment. It's an open, highly-portable Smalltalk-80 implementation. It is really friendly place for kids to get started and smalltalk is a good language for kids to start with.
Being nine years old with an aptitude for math and computers should allow your son to grok much of Python and especially the Pygame modules for easy game writing in Python. Pygame runs well in both Linux and Win32 (based on the SDL libraries, also free). There are plenty of short, easy examples of graphics and sound and animation using Pygame.
LiveWires has some Python courses specifically for non-programmers and young people, some with a slant toward games.
You might also look at Guido van Robot, a Python-based robot programming environment for children. Maybe it won't allow for 'real' game writing, but the concepts seem sound and it might be a more gentle intro.
You can write a simple version then start extending the hell out of it. I might recomend something a long the lines of a different flavor than the typical (I chose for my version Hunt the Wampa, Han Solo goes into the Ice caves to save Luke).
Try this.
-- I'd say your post was about 3 monkeys, 18 minutes.
I came across this a while back but didn't do much more than glance at it. It allows one to create games "without the need to write a single line of code" (quoted from the home page). It uses a lot of GUI elements to define logic. Windows based. I was considering it as a way to entertain my niece but decided it was too complicated at that stage.
I learned to program very young when I was seven or eight. My brother had a ZX81 . I got the bug from programming listings from the ZX81 manual and various magazines. I guess the way forward is to learn by example. It doesnt matter what language, its the techniques and the understanding that are most important. At that age just provide a sandbox that gives a basis to learn from. By the time he gets a bit older he will more than likely have the gift ... so just go for it!
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
I vote Python or Scheme.
Let this kid learn the Basic of this day: Visual Basic .Net 2003!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The PyGame (pygame.org) module for Python provides a reasonably complete binding of the Simple Direct Layer (SDL). It is sufficently high level to allow for the coding of reasonably good games win several pages of code. Using this in combination with the Python binding of VTK allows for the coding of real time interactive 3D apps in 3-4 pages of code. For folks who cant wrap their heads around VTK there is always pyGL
As a result it is possible to easily write games in python while promoting good coding pratice.
That's all I can find in a quick scan of my bookmarks from way back when...
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
eom
Hard enough to be interesting, easy enough that you don't have to teach them about collision detection. There is also an engine called COG which was specifically designed to for non-programmers to make games, although I don't know how far it's come since I last checked it.
I can only recommend what I learned to program with growing up. Unfortunately, they're not all that easy to find anymore.
I think HyperCard was the ideal introduction to programming. You some simple GUI apps in a WYSIWYG way, and every kid who learns to use it immediately grasps its potential for making games. It requires 0 programming knowledge up-front, but as kids start wanting to do more elaborate things, they can jump right in to the HyperTalk language, whose syntax is more English-like than any programming language I've seen since.
Take a look at this sample code:
on mouseUp
answer "Should I add up the first N numbers?" with "Cancel" or "Continue"
if it = "Cancel" then
exit mouseUp
end if
ask "Add up the numbers from 1 to what?"
put it into TheLargestNumber
put 0 into SumOfAllNumbers
put 1 into NumberToAdd
repeat TheLargestNumber times
add NumberToAdd to SumOfAllNumbers
add 1 to NumberToAdd
end repeat
answer "The sum is" && SumOfAllNumbers & "."
end mouseUp
Unfortunately, Apple has pretty much abandoned HyperCard.
The other language I learned with was QBasic, since it came free on DOS systems at that time. It's not a language to use for any serious purpose, but it makes a good language for kids to learn because it doesn't force the issue about functions, data types, objects, etc. up front. Kids can just learn those things as they go. It is also a big advantage to have high level things like graphics, music, random number generation, etc. as basic parts of the language not requiring external libraries or much knowedge of types, objects, functions, etc.
There are almost certainly other languages out there with similar advantages for first time users, such as Perl maybe (though it would need libraries for a lot of things built into QBasic.) Basically anything that requires no more than one line for a "hello world" program should fit the bill.
Just as important as the language is your role in teaching. Don't just drop the kid off with a manual, but don't teach it like a class, either. Just show him a few things like console i/o, for loops, and while loops. If he's really interested he'll churn out a library of little "games" with just those structures (plus random number generation.)
Avoid introducing concepts until he can see the use for them. I remember being very skeptical of arrays until I was trying to write a program that needed them. Generalizing that, I would present a programming challenge, and after he's chewed on it awhile, introduce the language feature that makes it possible.
For great justice.
how I became a programmer:
.exe files, and by the removal of line numbers. I soon ran into limitiations even here, such as the inability to use mouse input (although oddly enough, it supported lightpen input!). .COM TSRs and boot sectors. NASM was the most robust and sensible assembler. I also used the DOS debug command a little.
GW-BASIC
Maybe not the most elegant solution, but certainly a reasonable starting point at the end of the microcomputer era. This is how I leared. Of course having an uncle who could also code in BASIC and a father who occasionally dabbled helped too. I still have my old book "Using BASIC" from Que, well worn and loved, which I received for a birthday sometime around 8 or 9. The book itself had some mediocre tutorial value, but the real value was in the quick reference at the back. All of the basic commands' syntax laid out in a simple, easy to follow manner.
I had also studied Logo in school, but was frustrated by the inability of the language (at least the subset of the language that the teacher taught us) to handle user interaction with the program. Sure I could make the turtle draw circles and other more complex pictures, but what good is that if I can't read input from a joystick?
Today, there may be better starting points than BASIC, especially for learning good coding practice, but I still found BASIC invaluable in teaching the (very simple) usage of variables, loops, conditional statements, pixels, input, and simple logic. The immediate feedback was nice; no need to compile before you knew what was wrong, and a step debugger built into the environment. GW-BASIC was also fairly compatable with most of the programs I found in books and magazines that I received as hand-me-downs or in the DD 001 section of the library, which was nice. Lots of examples.
When I outgrew GW-BASIC, my next step was QuickBasic. I was thrilled by the ability to compile
My next step was assembly (of the x86 variety). I explored this first as a means to write QuickBasic libraries to handle mouse input, but later began using it for other small projects in DOS. At this stage, I found the DOS interrupt and BIOS quick reference guides from Que at the local library. These were superb! They had the same quick reference structure I had liked in Using BASIC, but without the rest of the bulky book attached. I also read the articles in Mark Feldman's Game Programmer's Encyclopedia (probably still available online if you google for it,) and I downloaded documentation on DMPI and played a bit with that.
My work with assembly and study of demo-making techniques taught me a lot about optimization. Throughout my assembly experimentation I tried several assemblers; TASM was pretty good. MASM was insane. MagicAssember (a freeware project available on the web) was very goot for small
Finally I decided to try C. Microsoft C to be exact. I wanted the ability to write windows programs. I had trouble finding a good reference to use for MSVC, and much banging of head against walls ensued. I still haven't perfected my C, but it has improved a bit. I probably would have done much better with a Borland compiler and a good book.
I did a some work with JavaScript, and it was fairly simple at the beginning, but the Browser Wars killed it.
Finally I was introduced to the Unix Swiss Army Chainsaw, Perl, and the best computer book I had ever used, the Perl Black Book. Even though it may not be the fastest or cleanest language, it is the most usable language I have programmed in yet. Basic Perl syntax is fairly simple, advanced syntax features are available if you need them, and almost everything you would ever want to do with it short of a GUI is accessable with the built-in functions. If you want more, of course, there is all of CPAN waiting to do your bidding.
Don't get me wrong, other languages like C and Assembly are still invaluable in certain cases, but Perl is versetile enough to allow me to do almost anything well enough to get the job done.
LOL!
I see no reason why a 9 year old cannot learn ANSI compliant C or C++.
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
A few years later my dad got us a copy of Kids and the C=64 but the games in that didn't seem as fun as the ones we were making, which were more graphical.
Learning by making games is the way to go. Kids can learn some algebra concepts by learning the simple graphics libraries and learning to do simple animations.
A few years ago a 12 year old sent me an email and asked if I would help him make a video game. He had seen one of my others games on the web and wanted to learn. I thought it was cool that he dared to ask, so I took him up on it. We decided to code in Java since it is freely available and you can put your work up on a website for others to see. The result is at http://www.angelfire.com/games4/anirak/. I did most of the programming and he did the design of the game and the graphics. We went over the code using instant messenger he understood it and would modify it to try out different things. It was a lot of fun for him.
After that I started writing a pacman type tutorial on the same site, but only recently have I made any progress on it. Unfortunately the stuff I have done recently is pretty complex. It is probably easier to stick to shot-em-ups that don't involve complex boards or AI when using the game as a learning tool for children.
If you want to use any of the code on those sites for educational purposes feel free to do so.
Lasers Controlled Games!
It can produce games which look like the cheap ones in the bargain bin (which is good enough for a beginner!) and it doesn't require TOO much effort. A great stepping stone for a budding young programmer.
Has he expressed an interest in programming or just game creation in general? There are fan sites for virtually every popular game. They host user-created addons, tutorials on every aspect of modification (from level design to texture creation to in-game scripting to ai, animations, modelling, etc.). Encourage him to find sites like these and start making addons. Lots of people have been hired out of our community alone (site up there ^^). Hell, a lot of our visitors are 13-15, and most of them are far more talented than I am, and I've been programming "professionally" since 1998. I would hire any of those kids in a heartbeat over the 25 "professional web developers" we interviewed recently at the company I work for.
I used this sytem for 2 years before switching to the Torque engine (simply to delve deeper into the engine). It is by far the easiest and most rewarding system available for a newcommer without prior programming knowledge.
www.3dgamestudio.com
It's now cross platform (java), and available from Stagecast
Looks like it gives a great intro to OO programming, since every character is an object to which you can assign properties and behaviors.
Of course, I might be biased as I used gwbasic to write a text adventure game when I was a kid, but who knows :)
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
If you're not afraid of ramming object-oriented design into the kid..
:)
check this out:
http://www.alice.org
I'm 21 and extremely interested in game development, always have been. My uncle brought over a copy of Alice for me when he was visiting for Christmas, I played with it for about 15 minutes, I found it to be a little simplistic, but I can see how a kid might just go crazy over it, especially one with little to no programming skills.
The nice thing about Alice, is that it teaches well structured programming, while eliminating the possibility of syntax errors (sounds crazy? I'm not kidding), plus it lets you see the output of your program in a 3D environment (exciting, flashy).
That or buy the kid a C/C++ book and throw him at a text editor & compiler
( I hope this made sense, I'm half asleep )
My programming language of choice is WinBatch, and I did once try to make a network Poker game.
As soon as my nephew moves back to my locality, I am going to expose him to Linux and WinBatch.
Speaking of Linux and WinBatch, has anyone confirmed whether or not Wine will run WinBatch?
Calling atheism and agnosticism a religion is like calling bald a hair color.
Does he want to be a programmer or a game designer? The two are not quite the same thing.
That being said, get him started with making board or card games, and learn the basics of rule creation, game balancing, etc.. early on.
Alice is a free simple 3d system based around Python - I can highly recommend it, my two ten-year-olds and even my six-year-old have been playing on it.
It's developed by Carnegie Mellon University, and at it's simplest is directed towards telling interactive stories. It's sufficiently flexible to allow a wide range of applications, however. The interface is intuitive, and it has a large library of pre-built objects to get started with.
I think you are on the right track with Logo, since Logo is an interpreted and interactive language.
When the kid outgrows Logo (which he will do fairly quickly), then I'd suggest moving him on to other languages that are interpreted* and interactive - that is, that allow you to type commands at the command line to see "What happens if I do it this way".
TCL, Python, Perl, Forth, Ruby, (gack)Basic(gack again) are all good ways to go in this regard.
Of course, you want to teach the kid the value of looking at somebody else's code too - just make sure you explain the difference between "extending" and "plagarism".
* Yes, technically all the modern languages are bytecompiled at runtime, but for all intents and purposes they are interpreted in that you don't have a seperate "compile/assemble/link" phase.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I didn't see robocode mentioned. It's an IBM developed, java-based project intended for people who begin to learn programming. And it's a game.
from about the age of nine to 30 thinks that they want to write a videogame.
they go around trolling on programming sides and a stupid questions, and then when they are pointed to book ora web page with information, they spend about 10 minutes and then give up because it is too hard.
The ones that actually try to do something for a little while and up with a piece of crap they try to lay on to everybody they know. That is when they realise they have no creative talent, as is often the case with us programmers.
Lunar Lander is a great suggestion.
Another simple game to code is "artillery". It doesn't even have to be interactive in real time.
I got LogoMotion for my kid when he was 9. It has Turtle graphics (like logo), only it is more like Java. Unfortunatly it is no longer supported and you are stuck with the old versions. If I had to do it over I would use the Logo you found (and buy the book for him).
Now he is playing with CodeRally with Eclipse and Java. He is 11 and can solve most problems you set him (like make the car go to the nearest fuel depot), but his friends haven't a clue so it is hard to maintain his interest.
I figure the success his social life contributes more to his being happy than being a kick-ass programmer at an early age, so I don't push it. At least he'll know the basics when he needs it.
Linus Torvalds learned Assembly by typing his Grandfather's code in for him.
For beginning game programming I would recommend Dark Basic
k team.com/English/jamagic.htmi c.com/
http://darkbasic.thegamecreators.com/
It is geared toward game programming and there is a beginners book available. A version of basic would be a good start for a 9 year old. At least they would learn some programming structure and concepts that would build the foundations for learning more complex languages in the future.
Others of this type are:
http://www.ethosbasic.com/
http://www.clic
http://www.blitzbas
Lets see here - he is already gifted in math and computers, just like most of us (are / were at that age). Lets assume the kid has just a touch of autism (which is good for computer guys) and already knows his way around a keyboard and a development environment.
:
Programming isn't about syntax, and it isn't about variable scope or recursion or data structures or loops or any of that crap - it is about expressing, simulating, or recreating real world ideas in a digital format. The biggest problem most programs have isn't that the programmer didn't use the correct syntax of some computer language - it is that he didn't understand the business problems or real world ideas that he was attempting to address digitally in the first place, or he wasn't able to bridge the gap between the real world and the digital recreation of those ideas.
He wants to program computer games, teach him project lifecycle development
1. Imagine
2. Define
3. Architect
4. Develop
5. Deliver
The imagine phase doesn't happen on a computer, it happens in your brain. Add a box of crayons and some paper, have him sketch out a storyboard to help him envision the flow of the game. The difference between good usable software and crap that nobody likes happens right here.
The define phase doesn't happen in a programming language, it happens in English in Word or OO - or possibly even verbally, have him define it to you so you can help him shape it. Define all the different parts of the program, what all he is going to do. The difference between bloatware and good focused software happens right here.
Architect phase happens with Legos or Crayons - or a whiteboard with colored (easy erase) markers. Could be simple, but doesn't have to be. The difference between web sites that can / cannot handle a slashdotting happens here.
Develop - now he starts coding. Look at what he has designed, how he architected and THEN pick a platform, language. If he wants to code a stock market game then Logo isn't your language. If he wants to make a first person shooter then GW-Basic isn't going to cut it, and ANSI C probably isn't either. Tip here : pick a language that you know so when he needs help you can help him. If he got the first three right, this one pretty much has to succeed.
Deliver - could be deploying it to your ISP if it is a web based game, could be burning it to a CD if it isn't.
Software development doesn't start with 'what language do I want to use?' It starts with 'what EXACTLY do I want to accomplish?' If you fire up VB.NET in an IDE and plunk him down at the keyboard while his goal is still a simple 'make a game' then the poor kid is fuxored. That works if all you want to do is teach him syntax and bad programming habits. If you want him to be good - then show him how the development process starts not with his hands on a keyboard, but with a box of crayons or a whiteboard.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Try this post:
"I have been asked to teach a week-long class on Computer Game Design for a small group of computer literate kids, around 9-13 years old. My plan is to have them create a simple game, while exposing them to aspects of story design, artwork, animation, and simple programming. To this end, I'm looking for a 'game construction kit' that is simple enough that they can have a working game by the end of the week with some guidance. Anyone remember the 'Arcade Game Construction Kit' on the Commodore 64? Adventure Game Studio looks good, but it may be too complex. The genre is flexible, but it does need to generate a distributable Win32 binary that they can take home. Are there any Windows packages, public domain or otherwise, that can do this, especially any designed for kids?"
god i need a fscking life...i've tearned into jeeves.
SDL is a GREAT graphics library that is cross platform and easy to use. Simply amazing what you can do with it, and how easily. There are libraries out there for TTF support, along with networking and multi-threading. Really, everything you need for a simple 2D graphics game.
Project 1: Make a puzzle game, maybe one of those image sliding things where you divide an image up into a 5x5 set of tiles, mix them up, remove one and you have to shuffle things. Additions to this would be to make the tiles 'animate' (slide, as opposed to just move), let the user choose an image, record high scores/times. Advanced stuff would be to make it a client/server program and have two players compete with each other for fastest times. Add chat features so they can talk before/after matches.
These are all basics, but they're really, REALLY hard to learn at first when you've never done anything and the concepts are foreign. My first client/server game took me months to debug and get working right, and that was an 'eat the apple' type of game.
--trb
In pascal, when I was young. And I bet some slashdotters could have done it in much less time.
I believe that simple games that give graphical feedback of WTF is happening are much better for children that any text game.
BTW, programming the sound took another 3 days.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
How about a Commodore 64, a 1541 (or similar) disk drive, a copy of the original manual and, of course, a copy of the C64 Programmer's Reference Guide.....?
..got a few years to go) can understand the /whole/ system inside their head.
It can be easier to get going with only the bare basics of a computer, it's a simple enough system that a young teen (ok,
Start with Basic, move onto Assembly language when you run out of power (or get very bored with Basic).
With a C64 you'll soon also be messing with hardware registers and stuff too (POKE is just about the only way to do anything at all - even change the border colour, etc) - you'll learn boolean operations when you need to peek/poke to set a bit, and that'll also get you into binary and hexadecimal too.
The same could apply to other old 8 or 16 bit home computers too, but my favourite was the '64.
The lessons learnt from hacking such a machine are invaluable if you're gonna try to program a game.
My view is at least somewhat biased: I was a professional games programmer for ~10 years, mostly on the C64 in the early days.
On the other hand, if 'making' games is the goal (as opposed to programming them), maybe you should look for some kind of 'construction kit' type software, or look at using a high level language and some decent library code -- I've got no real advice to offer on either of these though, sorry.
Good luck!
I posted a similar article almost a year ago for a class I was doing for kids about that age. I ended up using Game Maker, which worked very well - it let them experience various aspects of game design, such as graphics, sound, gameplay, collision detection, without having to do it all from scratch in a low level language. We just used the graphical interface, but it also has a scripting language for more complicated programming. After 10 hours of class time, the kids were able to take a fully playable game home with them.
For an experiment, see how he feels about putting together a puzzle/"choose your own adventure" style game in HTML. Have each page represent a new location or result from an action and link them all together ("Click here to turn left down the corridor or here to drink the potion on the table"). This will teach him a bit about game structure and let him throw in a few (admittedly, static) graphics, all with a very low technical knowledge threshold. It will also introduce the idea of scripts, embedded objects, and hyperlinking (which, naturally, are useful in many other endevors beyond game construction).
If he does well (e.g. actually finishes the dang thing), you should look at Macromedia Flash (as others have suggested). Newgrounds has a ton of flash games & cartoons that are unsuitable for a nine year old, but there are two stop motion lego cartoons that I suspect will fire up your son: a basic Lego pirate movie (no sound, very short) and a Lego Treasure Hunt Game (which is an incredible bit of work - I've wanted to do one myself for a while now). I personally like the stop motion animation aspect of both as they level the playing ground for the artistically impaired (such as myself).
Good luck!
</My Two cents>
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
I forgot to mention the obvious: You can do this with any authoring tool or even with MS Word (which I'd suggest over teaching him to manipulate an HTML file with a text editor at this stage).
Also, the kid can upload the pages to a Geocities site and share it with his friends, generate some web traffic, start a company, go public, become a millionarie, and buy for a villa in Tuscany for his parents!
Sorry. I had a 1999 dot-com flashback there for a moment. This is stronger coffee than I thought...
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
My 9 y.o. son has enjoyed Flash, and the book "Cartooning with Flash" and "Flash MX for Dummies" ... He's going to do this computer summer camp to pick-up more. My approach is to throw things that work at him, and let him pick them apart and learn them. For example, he's got an updated flash game at his web site www.averywilson.com that was a restructuring of a space invaders tutorial.
http://www.clickteam.com/English/tgf.htm
If I have to look at one more piece of software that doesn't mention what license it's published under, I'm going to kick your ass.
You sucker kids into creating content linked to your shitty libraries, then even provide some kind of hosting scam, and in the end all they're left with is a few cents in their PayPal account, right? While you "adults" keep all their blood, sweat, and tears in little plastic vials.
Considering that the software doesn't even have a disclaimer of liability, maybe I should just sue your ass because it doesn't accurately reflect my dreams or some trump charge like that? Get a clue: we live in a litigatious world, the least you can do is tell people what they're buying into or you might find yourself checking out.
A lot of the people here are advocating the hardcore, learn-to-program approach.
;)
But not everyone that wants to make games wants to learn programming, and this was a source of some frustration in my own younger years, because although I had tools available, I saw what I was going on, and I had plenty of ideas, my drive to actually create code was almost zero. So I let things sit quite a long time, and was almost entirely dependent on finding tools that minimized the amount of structural work needed(graphics routines, objects, tile engines) and maximized the amount of control I had over the critical segments of gameplay, like collisions and shooting. The best free one around like that today is Mark Overmars' Game Maker. It allows you to do some very complex things with a C-subset scripting language, while at the same time providing a strong IDE and toolset. It's unfortunately tied to DirectX and Win32, though, and it's also not an opensourced project(for a $15 registration fee you get a couple more options), but the free version is by no means crippleware, and for what it does it's very good. Also the forums are quite funny because the majority of the posters are kids playing at game development, and not even really having the smarts to do well with such a great tool.
Now I'm a freshman in college and plan to get at least a BA in CS, not because I like it, but because it's going to keep pushing me to advance my skills until I'm well capable of making games of all complexities. (I plan to go into shareware/independent gaming, so learning all skills equally well is a Good Idea. Also a good recipe for using up all my spare time.)
I've moved on from Game Maker to Pygame since I started college; my current greatest accomplishment with it is doing a scrolling tile engine(with all sizes, screen border etc. adjustable); it took three times for my code to be really anything close to clean, and after the second time I decided OOP is not a magic bullet for anything. My next project is to add a modular framework that includes the tile engine; using this framework, users will be able to make maps that play differently, because each map will load some Python code and objects in addition to settings for the tiles. It's kind of confusing me, which the tile engine did too, the first time, but I think that if I keep at it I'll get somewhere, and from there it'll just snowball until all of the sudden the game I'm planning is done hehe
If you're referring to "Go To Statement Considered Harmful" by E. Dijkstra, I find that paper's condemnation of the BASIC programming language a bit outdated. Modern BASIC doesn't use GOTO much anymore. Instead, it uses IF ... THEN ... ELSE ...END IF, DO WHILE ... LOOP, DO ... LOOP WHILE, FOR ... NEXT, SELECT CASE ... CASE ... END SELECT. These came ultimately from the same language where C and Pascal ripped off their control structures: ALGOL.
Get something like Multimedia Fusion. Its easy to learn and has a lot of included graphics/sounds to use in games. There's also older "versions" of it out there, like Corel Click & Create, The Games Factory, and the original, Maxis's Klik & Play
NetLogo (google for it, related to starlogo) is a nice logo implementation that comes with many fun simulations prebuilt--covering a really interesting variety of topics. With some adult guidance a kid could imagine and do a lot of things with it, then use their programming skills on a robot kit like the cricket or something.
A Free, fast personal organizer for touch typists: onemodel
StarLogo is a programmable modeling environment for exploring the workings of decentralized systems -- systems that are organized without an organizer, coordinated without a coordinator. With StarLogo, you can model (and gain insights into) many real-life phenomena, such as bird flocks, traffic jams, ant colonies, and market economies. -- from the website. http://education.mit.edu/starlogo/ Another similar is NetLogo http://ccl.sesp.northwestern.edu/netlogo/download. shtml
Both are written in Java and run in Linux.
This might sound like an oddball choice of language for game programming, but since Perl has bindings for GTK, SDL and probably anything else you might want to use to construct a game, it has all the basics in place.
Documentation for the language is widepspread, copious and mature, and perl also makes a great general purpose language.
Also, Perl's syntax and language constructs tend to favour people who are exploring and playing, rather than implementing a rigid design they already have all mapped out in their head.
This sort of goes against what is considered good programming practice - you should be clear about what you want to implement before you implement it - but kids arent interested in what is good programming practice - it is far better to learn this yourself the hard way than to have a set of rigid doctrines bashed into you from the start, in my view.
Perl comfortably supports pretty much any approach you take to getting the job done, and thats just one reason why I love Perl and prefer it over more structured (but equally useful) languages like Python.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Take a look at Andre Lamothe's books. I know lots of programmers flame his books. However, I think his books are great for hobbiests. I think they're great for kids. I think this kid would love the Xgamestation. From what I have seen, Mr. LaMothe seems to geniunely want to help his readers.
I started to studying programing (C and a little ASM during the summer of my high school graduation) by reading his old Tips and Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus.
You might want to take a look at the Bebop to the Boolean Boogie as well.
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
I know this discussion topic is pretty much dead by now... But I'm working on a project I call Jiggle which (currently) merges JavaScript with OpenGL. Eventually I want to turn it into a powerful game/toy development enviroment for beginner-types.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch