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Captains log, stardate 345.455.33: I record this for people who might want to try this with kids around 10 years old: I made a game with my daughter, accordin

Captains log, stardate 345.455.33: I record this for people who might want to try this with kids around 10 years old: I made a game with my daughter, according to the .apk date it was 5 years ago so she was 10. I started by making a project in android studio. Then a gameloop, where you had one function for drawing and one function for handling clicks/screen presses. So when you pressed 'play' on studio, it opened an 'empty game' on her own phone. All you had to do to make a game, was to edit 2 different functions and to make variables to pass info. After that we started coding together and I no longer touched the keyboard. I just asked what she would like to do next, and gave advice how it could be done. She had patience for about 15 minutes at a time, and after of total maybe 2 hours, calendar time 4 weeks, we finished a 'hit a mole' game. I was quite careful not to put any pressure like 'lets do a bit more'. And asked maybe twice a week, 'would you like to do some coding'. After the project she said it was 'not her thing'. This summer she was coding web-UI with Java+IntelliJ in my work as a summer trainee, and now she said she enjoyed it.

hhas01 6y ago
“After the project she said it was 'not her thing'. This summer she was coding web-UI with Java+IntelliJ in my work as a summer trainee, and now she said she enjoyed it.” Her first instinct was not wrong. I’ve been coding 20 years now (self-taught automator who turned pro after the first 10), and though I absolutely love what programming enables me to do I still despise the amount of hostility and crapwork that “popular” modern programming platforms put me through in order to do it. I hope your daughter goes on to achieve whatever she wants to achieve, and if that should be programming I hope she never forgets that early distaste, because that is the only thing that will drive substantive improvement in a culture and industry grown fat and complacent on the sorry status quo. -- “The reasonable woman adapts herself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to herself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable woman.” ― George Bernard Shaw (paraphrased)
babuskov 6y ago
I made a game with my 9-year old who's struggling with math. Because of this I did all the programming, but I made him draw the main hero and all the monsters. He's got an interesting style. You can see the game here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1226170/Forest_of_MATH/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1226170/Forest_of_MATH/ Of course, the game itself is meant for him (and other kids) to play and practice basic math. I hope he'll get to program his own games in a couple of years.
- b3ting 6y ago
  The game looks great! I love the idea of the maze, it brings me back to the RPG games I played when I was younger. What was the tech stack you used to make the game? I'm wondering if there are any tools or frameworks intuitive enough to make the game with a 9-10 year old.

hhas01 6y ago

“After the project she said it was 'not her thing'. This summer she was coding web-UI with Java+IntelliJ in my work as a summer trainee, and now she said she enjoyed it.” Her first instinct was not wrong. I’ve been coding 20 years now (self-taught automator who turned pro after the first 10), and though I absolutely love what programming enables me to do I still despise the amount of hostility and crapwork that “popular” modern programming platforms put me through in order to do it. I hope your daughter goes on to achieve whatever she wants to achieve, and if that should be programming I hope she never forgets that early distaste, because that is the only thing that will drive substantive improvement in a culture and industry grown fat and complacent on the sorry status quo. -- “The reasonable woman adapts herself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to herself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable woman.” ― George Bernard Shaw (paraphrased)

babuskov 6y ago

I made a game with my 9-year old who's struggling with math. Because of this I did all the programming, but I made him draw the main hero and all the monsters. He's got an interesting style. You can see the game here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1226170/Forest_of_MATH/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1226170/Forest_of_MATH/ Of course, the game itself is meant for him (and other kids) to play and practice basic math. I hope he'll get to program his own games in a couple of years.

b3ting 6y ago
The game looks great! I love the idea of the maze, it brings me back to the RPG games I played when I was younger. What was the tech stack you used to make the game? I'm wondering if there are any tools or frameworks intuitive enough to make the game with a 9-10 year old.