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Ask HN: Platform for 11 year old to create video games?
231–240 of 264 posts
Re: Ask HN: Platform for 11 year old to create video games?
#232Don't underestimate kids... just give them proper tools, and they will surprise you. JavaScript is a very forgiving language to learn: https://playground.babylonjs.com/ Game level designers are also a fun high-abstraction, and won't overwhelm the impatient. https://levelsharesquare.com/games/supermarioconstruct Have fun =3
JavaScript has me scratching my head when I can't see why something won't work and I don't get errors in the console.
JavaScript debuggers usually support breakpoints with the "debugger;" Keyword.
You are not confined to "console.log()" methods...
Also, setting regression tests with explicit object type checking on well structured source trees will help narrow the search for design flaws (i.e. minify single file includes should be at the final packing and CDN file hash signature stage.)
Best of luck =3
Re: Ask HN: Platform for 11 year old to create video games?
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not a huge fan of scratch (for obvious reasons I'm not the target audience!), but my 10 year old can't get enough of it. Recently we started digging into some of the more "advanced" concepts (basically arrays and functions) and I was surprised how far you could actually get with the system. I'm trying to move him off scratch on to something text based, but imo for a kid it's hard to go wrong starting with Scratch…
The social angle of sharing ones games with friends and getting likes etc. and the ability to quickly play it off a link are huge factors that keep motivation high for kids. This is underappreciated. I've been teaching my son JS but his main gripe is that he doesn't have an easy way to share his stuff in a quickly playable format.
you can use my aesthetic.computer vscode extension for quick publishing of interactive pieces that work on phones and laptops just the same
Re: Ask HN: Platform for 11 year old to create video games?
#234Love2d.
Agreed. OP said they don't know Lua, but if you know Javascript it can be picked up in a day or two. And it's really a lovely experience.
I started coding on my teens and I was using Turbo Pascal and later Borland C with BGI. Lua/Love2d is even easier to pickup than Pascal/C/BGI was, and has way better documentation.
I think 11y/o is a great age to start writing code! (or, tbh, as soon as you have learned to read and write and some basic arithmetic :-).
Re: Ask HN: Platform for 11 year old to create video games?
#235Construct: https://www.construct.net/en
And Humble Bundle has deals all the time on game development and assets.
Re: Ask HN: Platform for 11 year old to create video games?
#236I would encourage a bunch of different games where making a game is a game mechanic, so this includes: * Little Big Planet * RPG Maker (from the PS1 days ... I don't know what the new ones are like) * Super Mario Maker * Roblox (other comments are saying this is bad? I don't know much, but it was my first thought) * Dreams for the PS4 The person that made Lethal Company was originally a Roblox dev, so I know that rou…
I think Roblox can be bad in a "badly moderated online space" and "potentially abusive monetization/exploitative sharing structure" - the game itself feels good?
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Re: Ask HN: Platform for 11 year old to create video games?
#237I started on my casio when I was 12 ish back in the early 90s, and it was great for me cause I suck at graphics. Instead of pixels, the only output I could use were chars on the calculators grid. Something like 6 rows, 12 columns, like: ^ is your ship, * is the bad guys, and I is a laser. Games I remember making were - going through a tunnel avoiding walls that get progressively narrower - something like space invaders - snake of course - and some specific stuff to make fun of my teachers.
Re: Ask HN: Platform for 11 year old to create video games?
#238I'm a game designer. I moonlight teaching it to middle schoolers and adjunct at the university level, and I work on Bloxels, a game design tool.
When I got the itch to make games as a kid (late 80s, early 90s) it was in BASIC and it started with modding existing games (snake, gorillas, hammurabi) and then into making levels for DOOM to play with my friends. Didn't get into "real" coding until the iPhone dropped and I started making my own stuff and switched careers.
Lots of good recs here but here's my take:
- Twine might be just about right based on what you're saying your kiddo is into. It's about the closest thing to hypercard I've found- you string scenes together and with some modest work you can make a great dungeon crawler/choose your own adventure with inventory and variables, etc.
- Gamemaker might be a pretty great place to go after that. Plenty of legit indie games have been made with it. In my experience it's kinda like unity or unreal but less overwhelming. There are plenty of step-by-step "how to make an asteroids game" tuts out there, and based on your kid's interests, you could probably pick one and work through it together.
- Your kid is probably too advanced for scratch at this point, and might get frustrated. I think the Scratch mission is lovely and right, but if I'm 11 years old I want to build "cool stuff" but in Scratch it just takes too long to do that, and the ceiling is too low.
- Everyone who mentioned tabletop is spot-on....if you kid wants to understand how games really work. An exercise you can do is take a video game they like, and make the board game version. Classic example: Mariokart as boardgame. Makes you slow down and think about mechanics, how they combine and interact, player choices- all that. This is stepping up the learning, and pairs well with making stuff.
- Bloxels (which again, full disclosure, I work on) is a game design tool that might be worth a look. We try to have a low-floor (easy for newbs), high ceiling (experts can make cool stuff) and wide walls (big possibility space.) There's logic but no code. The public arcade and builder is here: play.bloxels.com
- Long term: There are SO many interesting things to do with games and in games. I'm excited for you and your kid and where you take it. Being a pretty new medium that comes from computers, it's easy to equate games with coding. But it can be and really is so much more. Have a good time with it.
Re: Ask HN: Platform for 11 year old to create video games?
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think Roblox can be bad in a "badly moderated online space" and "potentially abusive monetization/exploitative sharing structure" - the game itself feels good?
this. the tradeoff is with something like godot you only have examples/tutorials and hardly ever something "finished" or "very fun" or "thing people are playing". something like roblox or another modding-focused game allows you to see what other people did as inspiration or to show what other people are actually interested in, as opposed to just making things for yourself.
I've massively limited use of scratch in my house because of the "social" aspect. instead of being creative and learning about programming they spent most of their time looking at recommended "programs" by others which mostly consisted of meme videos, annoying sounds, gen alpha slang etc. I never saw much programming "inspiration", at times it almost seemed like allowing them to use tiktok. did anyone else have this experience?
Re: Ask HN: Platform for 11 year old to create video games?
#240Garry's Mod
Let's bring it back.