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Ask HN: Platform for 11 year old to create video games?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask HN: Platform for 11 year old to create video games?

#211

Post by InsideOutSanta »

The natural evolution from PowerPoint would be something like HyperCard. Unfortunately, there are no good modern versions of HyperCard that are easily available. I guess the closest is Decker, it was discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40292181

There's a native version on itch: https://internet-janitor.itch.io/decker

For me, this is frustratingly close to being absolutely awesome, but the visual adherence to what HyperCard looked in the 80s prevents it from being a genuinely useful professional tool. It replicates the reason why HyperCard died a slow, painful death.

For learning programming, it might be perfect, though, and the visual restrictions might make it less daunting for children to create their own graphics.

Re: Ask HN: Platform for 11 year old to create video games?

#212

Post by InsideOutSanta »

tomxor wrote: post #200

Plain HTML and JS, aka a web browser. I know it's every programmers favourite past time to hate on the web platform, but BASIC had a similar hate, yet it kind of was a well placed language for beginners. The web browser is the closest modern equivalent of booting into a basic prompt on $YOUR_FAVOURITE_80s_PC, without being as arcane or limited. You can hit f12 and start poking around immediately, on any modern comput…

There are also plenty of HTML game frameworks like Phaser, which allow you to put sprites on a screen and show particle effects almost immediately:

https://phaser.io/

Re: Ask HN: Platform for 11 year old to create video games?

#214

Post by sim7c00 »

love2d is quite interesting. also, modding games can be a good start. i started getting interested in how games worked through modding half life 1. it was a game i loved and hence and easy thing for me to imagine stuff in. from basic levels and learning its entity system and vertex editing functions soon the itch came for custom textures and code. theres likely more mod friendly games nowadays (not having to code in C for example :'))

Re: Ask HN: Platform for 11 year old to create video games?

#217

Post by dunham »

chii wrote: post #74
gus_massa wrote: post #4

I remember a few post of games made by children in Scratch https://scratch.mit.edu/ For example: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23892698 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26050913 (My daughter tried to use Scratch, but it's too difficult to cut&paste and move blocks of code, she preferred a text based programming language, so YMMV.)

you can also use microsoft's https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/makecode it's slightly more user friendly imho, and you could do some more advanced stuff than scratch (i mean advanced as in using text, rather than blocks).

I also like that you can get a pybadge or similar device and run your creations on it.

Re: Ask HN: Platform for 11 year old to create video games?

#219

Post by bentt »

nailuj wrote: post #190
bentt wrote: post #116

Been a pro gamedev for 20+ years. You have a born game designer on your hands. It is important to not assume this means they are super interested in programming. They may be, but game design is its own thing. HN will skew you towards programming first, naturally. Check these out: - Adventure Game Studio ( https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/ ) - Twine ( https://twinery.org/ ) And these have more visual ways of prog…

One more suggestion are games that have powerful editors or modding tools. Starcraft, Age of Empires, Skyrim, Minecraft

Yes, modding is a great suggestion. So many talented working game developers started with mods.

Re: Ask HN: Platform for 11 year old to create video games?

#220

Post by bentt »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #205
bentt wrote: post #116

Been a pro gamedev for 20+ years. You have a born game designer on your hands. It is important to not assume this means they are super interested in programming. They may be, but game design is its own thing. HN will skew you towards programming first, naturally. Check these out: - Adventure Game Studio ( https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/ ) - Twine ( https://twinery.org/ ) And these have more visual ways of prog…

Toddlers make up fun games all the time. Isn't programming the point? Where's Roblox? Is there a single Twine game that an 11 year old has played?

The tools in Roblox are not that simple and are pretty geared towards technical people. They're cool! But in this case I think there are better ways to start.
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