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Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?

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Re: Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?

#111

Post by lubujackson »

fn-mote wrote: post #42

Understand that you're not going to finish what you start. Do things that are fun. Keep a notebook of ideas. Talk about plans and what you want do. Spend time with him. Even if almost none if it ever makes it into code, the imagination part will be going wild. Look at what he's really doing. He doesn't want to CODE. He wants to make a game. Like every kid. Emphasize the creative part just like he wants. Do things on…

What a great response. To follow, this doesn't preclude anyone's child from jumping head first into programming, just that "producing" a game isn't really the goal but "making" it is. My 9 year old son makes mini RPGs on paper. Like he draws hit points and a monster and does attacks and marks damage as he plays. It's awesome. Sometimes "making a game" doesn't need to be programming at all.

Re: Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?

#112

Post by BeefWellington »

If you haven't been exposed yet via Youtube shorts, there's a former Blizzard dev-turned streamer and indie dev named Thor Hall who has this resource site for this exact thing: https://develop.games/

It's quite extensive and he's very open and encouraging with his community.

Re: Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?

#114

Post by throwawayqqq11 »

Sorry, i dont have time to read the whole thread. A quick search for "blender" revealed just one hit. Here is my unprofessional take.

Use blender as a gateway for his visual ambitions. You can use his drawings as a background and sculpt something pretty from that blue print. Then get to animations, then the blender game engine, then python. Just as options ofc.

Blender looks frightening at first, so you might to learn some before to overcome the first hurdles but there are also alot of kid friendly tutorials out there.

Good luck :)

Edit: Working with blender is actual fun and this graphical approach has also the advantage for nudging him very slowly into this monumental task :)

Re: Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?

#115

Post by gnu_lorien »

Pet_Ant wrote: post #23

Nintendo Game Builder Garage for the Nintendo Switch will get him started. https://www.nintendo.com/en-ca/store/products/game-builder-g... The app has tutorials and built in games to get him to work up to making a game. Surely, his current game is too ambitious for him to pull off but this will get him making something and thinking about programming. There is also RPG Maker depending on the style of game: https://www…

I want to second Game Builder Garage. I recently went through the tutorials in this game with my six-year-old and it's been an amazing introduction. There are also a bunch of tutorials and games you can find the codes for online if he wants to go further once done. I've haven't found anything else that simplifies 3D game making the way this did.

Re: Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?

#116

Post by aksss »

Wow, 9? That’s tough. I was just starting a 12yo on coding and it was hard to teach beyond what they were immediately interested in. I like the other comment that stressed the kid doesn’t want to learn to code, he wants to make a game and spend time with you. If anything, I’d find very quick 2D tools and sell him on it as a “draft” or proof of concept that you can convert to 3D later. Then focus on design and let his imagination run wild storyboarding it, etc.

Re: Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?

#117

Post by atoav »

Before working on a game certain skills need to be there. I would first start with a small project that helps building those skills.

Modelling: Blender is a good start. There are tons of tutorials on the subject. With blender you can creat backdrops, models and animations for games

Game Engine: I would nowadays start with Godot, there are equally many tutorials

Programming: I recommend doing something using processing.org, this is a simple IDE with a powerful library that can be programmed using Python/Javascript/Java. This is one of the easiest ways to draw something in a window using code.

Edit: I think the most important thing is that you go through this together with him. The way is much more important than the goal. If you do this right, you will most important) spend time with your kid, and teach them how to tackle a thing that even daddy isn't sure about doing. Discover things together with your son, let him try things even if you already know better. The right motivation is much more important here than getting to something good.

And it is hard to say remotely which part about games motivates your kid. Maybe it is the visuals, maybe it is the programming (this is more rare), maybe it is the result. If it is the latter a specialized 2D-engine would be a good start.

Re: Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?

#118

Post by greysphere »

If they're super motivated by the 3dness, Id suggest try Spore with the Galactic Adventures. Spore is a great 3d editing program for someone to get introduced to and Galactic Adventures let's you put all the stuff you create together in a world, with basic scripting and ai, all in a very player friendly way. (Disclaimer, I worked on these)

Re: Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?

#120

Post by netghost »

I'd really advise against going down the 3D path first. Not just because the math gets harder, but there's all the additional overhead of assets. A 3D game will require an environment, 3d models, etc. Maybe you can scrounge those, but unless he's really interested in the art aspect it's going to make it a lot harder.

Just to get things going, try out a 2D game engine. Love2D is great if you're okay with Lua. Browser based engines have a great iteration loop. On that front Kaboom.js could be a really quick way to get something fun that you could iterate on or use as a protoptype (look past the silly assets, it's pretty well thought out).

I saw some recommendations for Scratch, which might be fun for something simple, but it's really challenging (as far as I can tell) to scale up to non trivial games.

Taking a step back, see what part of this motivates him. It's an awesome opportunity to channel interest into something creative, focus on that. It might mean cutting scope somewhere, but he'll get more out of it if you can mine that vein of interest.

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