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

For a kid it might make sense to use something simpler than Blender. I like Asset Forge [1] and Kenney Shape [2], both made by "Asset Jesus" Kenney. Or just use the free assets he has made [3].

[1] https://kenney.itch.io/assetforge [2] https://kenney.itch.io/kenney-shape [3] https://kenney.nl/assets

1) Choose a type of game

2) Don't reinvent the wheel

I would suggest to take advantage of the library of open source games with source code available to explore. Maybe you could improve an open source game instead to create a new one

If is an adventure game, you could just design a new campaign for Wesnoth.

My advice would be to make a role game. With cool design and some bits of still 3D here and there.

It can use a mix of techniques, so you can take advantage of it to teach your child lots of new concepts.

Is easy. Much less frustrating than trying to recreate Saint Andreas type games. You don't need to mess with physics or how to make your characters walk an jump without glitches.

Can be finished in a weekend. Just a good history, several pictures of locations and some cards of characters to interact around. You can start with really simple rules and a few characters and call it a day. Mission accomplished.

Can be expanded. Add it more and more rich and interesting later, so your child will be entertained for much more time.

Is creative. Ask your son to design characters and monsters first and then draw the cards yourself. You could use an image manipulation program or use Stable diffusion to give life to your child ideas in realistic characters and cards, and your son will absolutely love it.

3) Don't use copyrighted material to create your game. Is teaching the wrong lazy lesson to your child. If you need a location background just use your own photos. Remember Flappy bird and use the game as an opportunity to educate your child in good practices.

4) If you feel brave, use blender for creating a small 3D scenery, or mm3d/freecad etc to draw detailed maps of buildings and areas.

Or the more free TIC-80. I have paid for both, but never used either enough to be able to say one or the other has any significant advantages.

https://tic80.com/

I picked up LOGO when I was 6 and leant Pascal and C later.

I didn't program for a few years because I wasn't interested in competitions. So I think interest is the most important, otherwise it will be easy to get lost and give up.

Later, I became very interested in programming, mainly because I came into contact with music technology.

I think since your child is interested in game development, it is a good choice to start step by step. For example, starting with threejs. I also recommend learning Rust and Bevy so you learn the underlying layers and ECS.

Last but not least, although it's not related to games dev but I sincerely invite you and your son to try Glicol (https://glicol.org), a music programming project that I am developing.

As others have also mentioned, the most important thing you can do is show interest and engage with your son and his ideas. And that really requires only your time and maybe a pencil and a bit of paper.

Figure out what kind of game this is and what part of the design process he's most interested in. Maybe it's not so much the game but he just wants to design cool game characters and have them walk around?

If you both do want to make a computer game, I think the various Make-A-Game games, many of which have already been mentioned, are your best bet. Game Builder Garage or Super Mario Maker (Switch), Wonderbox: The Adventure Maker (Apple), RPG in a Box or Super Dungeon Maker (PC), Roblox, whichever is the best match to your son's ideas.

Unlike some others here, I would recommend against switching to 2D. From a didactic perspective it absolutely would be the way to go as it makes a great many things a lot more manageable, but from experience you run a big risk of losing engagement and interest, especially as your son explicitly wants 3D. For a lot of kids in that age group, 2D just isn't cool.

I'd also recommend against full-blown development environments like Godot or Unity, at least until he's just a bit older. When he gets to that point, Unity does have some neat templates made especially for kids, where they get kind of a starter game and a walk-through on how to build it out.

Whatever you decide, have fun and good luck!