5 ms·

My son wants to learn how to make games but I have no game development experience. What path did you take to start learning game development?

by Osiris 5y ago

andrewstuart 5y ago
Some really great resources for kids to learn to program games: CodeCombat Construct 3
- TomGullen 5y ago
  Hey thanks for the Construct 3 mention we're always thrilled to see it come up :)
lmilcin 5y ago
I am developer with over 20 years of experience. I have learned programming from books where computers were generally not available where I grew up. But my son is learning programming (started when he was 6, he just turned 8 recently). He started by goofing off with some robots programmed in visual languages. Then moved to goofing off even more in Scratch. When pandemic started we found a school that teaches programming online and they used Scratch to program Minecraft which got my son hooked up -- he likes Minecraft a lot and having it do stuff that wouldn't otherwise be possible was a huge motivation for him to learn. He is now attending a second semester in that school and they are using Kodu for some more advanced, 3d goofing off. My son became big fan of Undertale recently and he approached me to learn to make some fan content based on Undertale. We did some research and found Undertale was made in Game Maker -- a game engine for 2d games. So this is what we just recently started learning. He is excited to finally start learning something that can be used to make professionally looking games and says that if it was good enough to make Undertale it is good enough for him:) He also just got his own Minecraft server (ehm... Raspberry Pi 4 with 8GB of RAM) and I am hoping that when he is bored with vanilla gameplay with his school friends he will want to start modding the game in some ways.
- bananabat 5y ago
  GMS2 is a good engine. I also built a Minecraft server for my son. Started with an RP4 but he complained about lag so I finally just let him a Linux laptop.
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    I went with PaperMC after I found vanilla server lags. PaperMC is "built for speed" and it seems to work fine even with couple people playing. Additionally, I can write plugins for PaperMC which is the whole point of having the server in the first place (at least in our case).
    - bananabat 5y ago
      We use PaperMC too. We've tried to implement GeyserMC so that his non-bedrock friends can join but so far, no love. I haven't had time to dig into why. Very cool that you can write plugins for your kid's server!
      - lmilcin 5y ago
        Yeah. When he was little younger he had trouble with navigation when flying Elytra between our distant bases. In particular he made a huge tower on a remote (4k blocks) mountain and we made gunpowder farm in the middle of an ocean (7k blocks away). So I wrote a plugin where you can save your current location with a name and you get a small overlay that tells you where you are pointing -- ie. what is saved destination closest to where you are pointing and whether it is right or left of where you point and how far (1, 2 or 3 angle brackets ). I am also working on couple other plugins.
        bananabat 5y ago
        He def thinks you're the coolest dad!
- zby 5y ago
  What do you use for programming in Minecraft? I tried Tinker with my son - but the process is rather tedious, you have to type in a command and an internet address to connect to with each game session, not to mention that Scratch block manipulation on iPad. Also the examples were rather limited. I don't play computer games at all myself - so I did not know what to propose to him.
oumua_don17 5y ago
Coding Games in scratch [1] [1] https://www.dk.com/us/book/9781465477330-coding-games-in-scratch/ https://www.dk.com/us/book/9781465477330-coding-games-in-scr...
debaserab2 5y ago
This may not be age appropriate depending on your kid, but the (free) CS50 course for games from Harvard [1] is outstanding and accessible to someone with a beginner level of experience. It's not as intro level as something like Scratch would be, but it's very practical hands on learning with tons of resources for anyone who wants to get "serious" about game programming. [1] https://cs50.harvard.edu/games/2018/ https://cs50.harvard.edu/games/2018/
bananabat 5y ago
I'm entirely self-taught. My personal experience is this: - Try a bunch of free engines and platforms. Depending on your son's age, this might mean starting with something like Scratch. I've played around with it myself and it's fun. It at least gives you a feel for game logic and how a game loop should feel. - GDevelop has come a long way. My son prefers it when he's just doodling around. - My husband prefers GameMaker Studio 2. But it's a paid program and the export modules (mobile, console, html5) are extra expenses that can add up. Also, GML is a nightmare (just my opinion). - I use Godot Engine. It's free, lightweight, GDScript is Python-like so pretty easy to get a handle on. It's perfect for 2D development. And the teaching community is very rich. - There's really no "x is better than y" as far as game engines, IMO...all depends on what you're trying to do and how far you are in expertise/experience. And it also comes down to what engine feels right to you. - Start with 2D, cannot stress this enough. Make as simple a game as possible when you're starting. This also means staying away from Unity and Unreal because both are simply too much engine for a beginner. - At some point, you're gonna have to learn how to code for real. Don't have to be a wiz...just enough to be competent. - Be a generalist, if possible. Depending on what you want to do and/or whether you have collaborators or not...you might also need to have basic art skills. I'm a graphic designer by trade so this wasn't an issue. But I had to learn Blender because I wanted to incorporate 3D art in my games. My husband learned how to make music. I also learned video editing so I could make good trailers. Etc, etc. - Love games. All kinds of games. I think this should've been first. - I hope that helps.
- pbourke 5y ago
  Did you use Godot for this game? Are you working on a next game? Congratulations on getting it finished and out there!
  - bananabat 5y ago
    Used Godot for this game. I started my journey with Unity but my C# is, at the moment, utterly mediocre. Maintaining this game but also starting on next ideas. Thank you very much!
- lloeki 5y ago
nassimsoftware 5y ago
You should look into replit with kaboomjs. Nothing to install easy setup and very easy to pick up game library. https://replit.com/site/kaboom https://replit.com/site/kaboom
lowbloodsugar 5y ago
Start with something that works, that has code, and that can be hacked on. When my kid was 9 we did the whole "decompile Minecraft" thing, and he made some pretty cool changes with no help from me. But I'm sure there are game tools with published repos that you can download and hack on. That's how I learned, except it was "typing in games from magazines" and modifying them. Starting from scratch (with "Hello World") just sucks.
- bananabat 5y ago
  Question: what is "typing games from magazines?"
  - Osiris 5y ago
    Back in the very old days, early 1980s, magazines like Byte would include games in the magazine in the form of code you had to manually type in and save. The ones I did were multiple pages of pure HEX. Later, magazines would ship with floppies that had the free software on it.
    - bananabat 5y ago
      Wow, this was not a thing where I grew up. I never even saw a real pc until I was in uni. That sounds awesome. Thanks for explaining. EDIT: Still totally fascinated by this. I asked my husband because I remembered that he had a much-beloved Spectrum when he was a kid and sure enough, he had digitized Your Sinclair issues on his iPad and he showed me several examples of games in Basic and hex. Super cool.
      - prerok 5y ago
        If you are interested in the history of games there is an excellent blog here: https://www.filfre.net/2011/06/the-trash-80-part-3/ https://www.filfre.net/2011/06/the-trash-80-part-3/ Have been following it for years and would recommend reading it all the way through. Maybe even get an idea for the next project :)
empressplay 5y ago
Logo can be a great place to start, it's good for simple games because each game element can be a turtle you can control relative to its own position. Logo interpreters suitable for simple game development include turtleSpaces https://turtlespaces.org https://turtlespaces.org

My son wants to learn how to make games but I have no game development experience. What path did you take to start learning game development?

by Osiris 5y ago

My son wants to learn how to make games but I have no game development experience. What path did you take to start learning game development?

andrewstuart 5y ago

Some really great resources for kids to learn to program games: CodeCombat Construct 3

TomGullen 5y ago
Hey thanks for the Construct 3 mention we're always thrilled to see it come up :)

lmilcin 5y ago

I am developer with over 20 years of experience. I have learned programming from books where computers were generally not available where I grew up. But my son is learning programming (started when he was 6, he just turned 8 recently). He started by goofing off with some robots programmed in visual languages. Then moved to goofing off even more in Scratch. When pandemic started we found a school that teaches programming online and they used Scratch to program Minecraft which got my son hooked up -- he likes Minecraft a lot and having it do stuff that wouldn't otherwise be possible was a huge motivation for him to learn. He is now attending a second semester in that school and they are using Kodu for some more advanced, 3d goofing off. My son became big fan of Undertale recently and he approached me to learn to make some fan content based on Undertale. We did some research and found Undertale was made in Game Maker -- a game engine for 2d games. So this is what we just recently started learning. He is excited to finally start learning something that can be used to make professionally looking games and says that if it was good enough to make Undertale it is good enough for him:) He also just got his own Minecraft server (ehm... Raspberry Pi 4 with 8GB of RAM) and I am hoping that when he is bored with vanilla gameplay with his school friends he will want to start modding the game in some ways.

bananabat 5y ago
GMS2 is a good engine. I also built a Minecraft server for my son. Started with an RP4 but he complained about lag so I finally just let him a Linux laptop.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  I went with PaperMC after I found vanilla server lags. PaperMC is "built for speed" and it seems to work fine even with couple people playing. Additionally, I can write plugins for PaperMC which is the whole point of having the server in the first place (at least in our case).
  - bananabat 5y ago
    We use PaperMC too. We've tried to implement GeyserMC so that his non-bedrock friends can join but so far, no love. I haven't had time to dig into why. Very cool that you can write plugins for your kid's server!
    - lmilcin 5y ago
      Yeah. When he was little younger he had trouble with navigation when flying Elytra between our distant bases. In particular he made a huge tower on a remote (4k blocks) mountain and we made gunpowder farm in the middle of an ocean (7k blocks away). So I wrote a plugin where you can save your current location with a name and you get a small overlay that tells you where you are pointing -- ie. what is saved destination closest to where you are pointing and whether it is right or left of where you point and how far (1, 2 or 3 angle brackets ). I am also working on couple other plugins.
      - bananabat 5y ago
        He def thinks you're the coolest dad!
zby 5y ago
What do you use for programming in Minecraft? I tried Tinker with my son - but the process is rather tedious, you have to type in a command and an internet address to connect to with each game session, not to mention that Scratch block manipulation on iPad. Also the examples were rather limited. I don't play computer games at all myself - so I did not know what to propose to him.

oumua_don17 5y ago

Coding Games in scratch [1] [1] https://www.dk.com/us/book/9781465477330-coding-games-in-scratch/ https://www.dk.com/us/book/9781465477330-coding-games-in-scr...

debaserab2 5y ago

This may not be age appropriate depending on your kid, but the (free) CS50 course for games from Harvard [1] is outstanding and accessible to someone with a beginner level of experience. It's not as intro level as something like Scratch would be, but it's very practical hands on learning with tons of resources for anyone who wants to get "serious" about game programming. [1] https://cs50.harvard.edu/games/2018/ https://cs50.harvard.edu/games/2018/

bananabat 5y ago

I'm entirely self-taught. My personal experience is this: - Try a bunch of free engines and platforms. Depending on your son's age, this might mean starting with something like Scratch. I've played around with it myself and it's fun. It at least gives you a feel for game logic and how a game loop should feel. - GDevelop has come a long way. My son prefers it when he's just doodling around. - My husband prefers GameMaker Studio 2. But it's a paid program and the export modules (mobile, console, html5) are extra expenses that can add up. Also, GML is a nightmare (just my opinion). - I use Godot Engine. It's free, lightweight, GDScript is Python-like so pretty easy to get a handle on. It's perfect for 2D development. And the teaching community is very rich. - There's really no "x is better than y" as far as game engines, IMO...all depends on what you're trying to do and how far you are in expertise/experience. And it also comes down to what engine feels right to you. - Start with 2D, cannot stress this enough. Make as simple a game as possible when you're starting. This also means staying away from Unity and Unreal because both are simply too much engine for a beginner. - At some point, you're gonna have to learn how to code for real. Don't have to be a wiz...just enough to be competent. - Be a generalist, if possible. Depending on what you want to do and/or whether you have collaborators or not...you might also need to have basic art skills. I'm a graphic designer by trade so this wasn't an issue. But I had to learn Blender because I wanted to incorporate 3D art in my games. My husband learned how to make music. I also learned video editing so I could make good trailers. Etc, etc. - Love games. All kinds of games. I think this should've been first. - I hope that helps.

pbourke 5y ago
Did you use Godot for this game? Are you working on a next game? Congratulations on getting it finished and out there!
- bananabat 5y ago
  Used Godot for this game. I started my journey with Unity but my C# is, at the moment, utterly mediocre. Maintaining this game but also starting on next ideas. Thank you very much!
lloeki 5y ago

nassimsoftware 5y ago

You should look into replit with kaboomjs. Nothing to install easy setup and very easy to pick up game library. https://replit.com/site/kaboom https://replit.com/site/kaboom

lowbloodsugar 5y ago

Start with something that works, that has code, and that can be hacked on. When my kid was 9 we did the whole "decompile Minecraft" thing, and he made some pretty cool changes with no help from me. But I'm sure there are game tools with published repos that you can download and hack on. That's how I learned, except it was "typing in games from magazines" and modifying them. Starting from scratch (with "Hello World") just sucks.

bananabat 5y ago
Question: what is "typing games from magazines?"
- Osiris 5y ago
  Back in the very old days, early 1980s, magazines like Byte would include games in the magazine in the form of code you had to manually type in and save. The ones I did were multiple pages of pure HEX. Later, magazines would ship with floppies that had the free software on it.
  - bananabat 5y ago
    Wow, this was not a thing where I grew up. I never even saw a real pc until I was in uni. That sounds awesome. Thanks for explaining. EDIT: Still totally fascinated by this. I asked my husband because I remembered that he had a much-beloved Spectrum when he was a kid and sure enough, he had digitized Your Sinclair issues on his iPad and he showed me several examples of games in Basic and hex. Super cool.
    - prerok 5y ago
      If you are interested in the history of games there is an excellent blog here: https://www.filfre.net/2011/06/the-trash-80-part-3/ https://www.filfre.net/2011/06/the-trash-80-part-3/ Have been following it for years and would recommend reading it all the way through. Maybe even get an idea for the next project :)

empressplay 5y ago

Logo can be a great place to start, it's good for simple games because each game element can be a turtle you can control relative to its own position. Logo interpreters suitable for simple game development include turtleSpaces https://turtlespaces.org https://turtlespaces.org