Others comments are great. I just wanted to throw out a couple of things my son and I enjoy - RPG in a Box which you can find on Steam is great as you can make a game without needing to write code but also supports scripting if he decides he is interested. Also doing the Build Box by Mark Rober is fun though a bit pricey.
Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?
311–320 of 391 posts
Re: Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?
#312Options I see: 1. Games with highly modifiable level building tools: Game Maker's Garage, Mario Maker, LittleBigPlanet and (a big step up) Dreams 2. actually playing some indie games with them to try and give them an idea of what's remotely feasible 3. if the latter gets them interested in 2D possibilities focusing on pixel art and having you piece the bits together 4. if they're still interested start looking at som…
absolutely Game Maker Garage
Re: Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?
#313Understand 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…
>YOUR SON DOES NOT WANT TO LEARN TO CODE You are probably right, but when I was 9 I definitely wanted to learn to code.
When I was as 8, I definitely wanted to learn to code.
Five years after that I was on equal footing with a few adult software engineers around me (my parents and their friends).
Playing/hacking/working with professional-grade code (leaked Quake code in particular) really helped me to form a good style. Wish I’ve received more code review hours even on kiddies projects.
Funnily enough some of the code I’ve written at 8-9 (a menu system for a primitive graphics editor) I’ve reused five years later in a project that had users and significant money returns.
Re: Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?
#314Our local community college had a game dev camp in the summer, and that was a great start for my 9yo b/c it had a program for him to follow and kids like himself with whom to learn. Then this past holiday season we built a game together. I've built software for 23 years but never a game. He taught me so much! I taught him things like how to get something deployed so his buddies could see it online. Great fun.
And since the camp was thru the community college, it was very affordable. I think it was $150 for the week.
Re: Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?
#315Firstly, the other comments about his interest being bonding with you. Definitely leverage as much as you can prior to building anything. But I suspect he actually DOES want to play his idea. He thinks you’re a programmer so could help him, so that’s why he’s asking you. IMO that is. Secondly, I think you be honest with him and say games are hard and not something you specialize in but if he really want to invest som…
Yes! Some of my favorite memories with my pops involved him saying "I don't know, let's figure it out".
E.g.:
Me: "dad can we make lava?"
Dad: "I don't know, it has to be really hot"
Me: "We have a torch, thats really hot, will that work?"
Dad: "I don't know, go find a rock I'll get the torch"
20 minutes of heating a rock later
Me: "I don't think this is gonna work, its not even glowing yet"
Dad: "yeah you're probably right. wanna see something cool tho?"
Me: "Yeah"
* Dad puts the rock in the "safety bucket" of water we had there in case somethigng caught on fire. It steams and hisses and the water gets hot *
Me: "COOL!"
Other good memories include failed attempts to fix broken toys, the time we went on a quest but failed to locate the source of a stream, the rainy day we went fishing in a drainage ditch (where there would never be fish), and so on.
Re: Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?
#316Mario Maker. Pretty much full stop. After that, Scratch has some good facilities to make games, as well. But starting at low level dev kits is just not where you want to be.
Re: Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?
#317Scratch itself can be fun for kids just making characters and objects move around like an animated cartoon, then add game elements like navigating the character through a maze, then adding stuff like kicking a ball through a goal.
You can probably get that far in a day or two. And if interest persists, advance to customized Minecraft or Roblox.
Re: Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?
#318Your situation is very tough because you want to encourage this but also you have to be realistic and that's what your kid probably doesn't want to hear. I always try to get across to my daughter of seven that you can't scale a mountain in one step just as you can't eat a cake in one bite and that trying to do that is guaranteed to be a miserable experience that's going to put you off the activity forever. I don't th…
A good starting point for making actually working games is text. I used Twine with my kids relatively successfully.
https://twinery.org/
Re: Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?
#319Maybe he should figure it out? This curling cripples kids. Source: Me
I'm only good at the things I was forced to figure out myself, as no one else knew. Like the family computer, installing it etc. Then building my own, installing and troubleshooting Windows etc.
Re: Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?
#320Mario Maker. Pretty much full stop. After that, Scratch has some good facilities to make games, as well. But starting at low level dev kits is just not where you want to be.
RPG Maker as well, my daughter had fun with that at a young age.