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Teaching Kids to Make Games?

Posted by Cliff on from the fun-with-turtles dept.

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?

1 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Control expectations by flabbergast · · Score: 5, Insightful

    *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.