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

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

#42

Post by MarcScott »

You should definitely take a look at Struckd Studio which is now part of Unity Play - https://play.unity.com/en

It's still a little buggy in places, but nothing that can't be overcome.

You can drag and drop in 3D assets and many of them come with built in and easily changeable behaviors. Then there is a node based programming language that you can use to make alterations.

It's web based, but also has iOS and Android apps available for editing and playing the games.

edit - I'm an educator working in the CS ecosystem, and am playing with Struckd with the intention of making a suite of learning resources.

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

#43

Post by Svenskunganka »

I started with the World Editor from Warcraft 3 around that age, creating custom maps, gamemodes and spells/abilities. It has scripting capabilities that is somewhere between GUI code and actual code. There's also a lovely community around the World Editor over on https://hiveworkshop.com. Picking the latest custom spell updated as a showcase, if you expand the "Spoiler: Triggers" you can see how the "code" looks like: https://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads/frost-field-v1-0-1.3556...

There are a lot of custom maps in that game that has later become their own standalone games, the most well-known is probably Dota 2 that is the successor to the DotA custom map in Warcraft 3. I hear the Warcraft 3: Reforged update brough Lua support, but the "old" way of using the GUI or JASS is still supported so there is a natural learning path from the simpler GUI code to more advanced JASS or Lua code.

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

#45

Post by atilimcetin »

There are lots of good suggestions here. My first preference would be pico-8 (already mentioned).

But also I can also suggest another interesting option: GB Studio - https://www.gbstudio.dev It's a quick and easy to use drag and drop retro game creator for game boy. It also supports visual scripting.

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

#46

Post by davesmylie »

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.)

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.

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

#48

Post by nodja »

Gamemaker if you want no code. It's free if you're not planning to release games commercially. You can add code later if you want custom behaviors that gamemaker doesn't include out of the box. 2D only.

Godot if you want coding. Coding is required but it uses gdscript which is a python inspired language. The editor is also batteries included, so godot.exe will include everything you need to make a game (aside from assets, but even there some plugins can help). 2D and 3D, but 3D is not "AAA" tier.

I honestly recommend you go for godot. There are tons of tutorials out there to create all kinds of games, specially if it's something basic. It's what I wish existed when I was 11 and had tons of time to mess around.

I'd say look up a quickstart tutorial for both and check if your kid likes any of them.

I see lots of recommendations for niche/toy engines. I don't recommend those because it'll be hard to look up tutorials for them. Having guidance in essential. I also don't recommend your kid get to roblox, sure he might be able to make some money or get lots of attention, but having external motivators can be very detrimental.

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

#49

Post by jaustin »

dtagames wrote: post #6

Microsoft MakeCode Arcade is terrific. It has both a block interface and real Typescript under the hood, and you can switch back and forth anytime.

MakeCode Arcade also has the ability to put your games on physical hardware, which can be a game changer for engagement. A simple game on a 128x256 grid can feel a bit “rubbish” on a laptop screen, but put it on something with a Gameboy form factor and it comes into its own.

Arcade also has amazing editors for sound, sprites, etc.

Here’s Flappy Bird https://arcade.makecode.com/88444-57913-28610-31751 (Not made by me!)

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

#50

Post by andai »

rkhassen9 wrote: post #23
andai wrote: post #12

When I was that age I made a bouncing ball in Flash (ActionScript, similar to JS).[0] This is still my "hello world" when trying out a new game dev environment because it covers: - drawing - movement - input - acceleration - gravity - friction - collision And all of these in essentially the simplest possible way. Most of all, it's a lot of fun to have a bouncing ball, and even more fun if you can use the keyboard or…

I still lament the loss of Flash. It’s ability to get in there and as a single user do everything from design to animation to code front end and back end was enormously flexible and easy for creatively engaging and creating. It fit the “bicycle of the mind” concept. As far as I know, no single tool has replicated that kind of freedom. For rapid prototypes that one could actually iteratively build on top of top make a…

I've dreamed of cloning Flash for a long time. Aiming for full compatibility is infeasible (unless you can convince the Ruffle folks to give it a go once they're done with Ruffle!), but aiming to capture the spirit of Flash (e.g. build Flash like authoring tools on top of TS/WebGL) is certainly doable.

The Wick editor was one such attempt, though it didn't gain traction and was abandoned.

Also there seem to be quite a lot of us who feel this way -- a dozen or more every time Flash is mentioned on HN -- maybe it's time we got organized? "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody ever does anything about it!"

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