There's two modes of programming in gamemaker: drag'n'drop, and regular scripting (in 'GML', a c-like scripting language). You can get by for quite a while with

There's two modes of programming in gamemaker: drag'n'drop, and regular scripting (in 'GML', a c-like scripting language). You can get by for quite a while with basic games or prototypes just from dragging and dropping events and commands, like: object ball - create event: start ball moving right - keyboard up pressed event: move ball up etc. I think it's accessible for kids if they take the time to go through some tutorials (there's one called "catch the clown" that's built in, and there's tons on youtube and various sites). As they get more advanced, they can change out their dropped in commands for "execute code" or "execute script (aka function)", and do lots of crazy things. Additionally, nothing else is really needed outside of gamemaker. There's built-in editors for drawing, so you can make backgrounds and sprites right in there, though importing files from more advanced programs is possible. You'll want something external for sound editing, however. Or just import mp3's and wav's. Here's the tutorial from an older version of gamemaker: http://www.murrieta.k12.ca.us/cms/lib5/ca01000508/centricity/domain/1770/1%20catch%20the%20clown_gm%20_tutorial.pdf http://www.murrieta.k12.ca.us/cms/lib5/ca01000508/centricity... While the gui has changed some since then, you can get the general idea of the drag'n'drop functionality, and judge for yourself if your kids can grasp it or not. Finally, there's a marketplace with (some free, some not) assets of varying utility. There are lots of game demos or 'something to get you started' that you can then have them modify: https://marketplace.yoyogames.com/ https://marketplace.yoyogames.com/ For example, there's a guy on there who is doing a series called "how did they do that" that shows the basic concepts of a given game. Here's super mario brothers: https://marketplace.yoyogames.com/assets/3915/hdtdt-mario-bros https://marketplace.yoyogames.com/assets/3915/hdtdt-mario-br... They can download that, see how they did that, then play with variables and mod it to see how that changes the game. If he has an android phone, and you set up the android environment on his computer, he can export his game to .apk right from there, and run it on his or his friend's devices (if you have a place online to upload it to). That has some serious cool factor among friends for sure.