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Slightly OT: For those who have used TIC-80 or PICO-8 to introduce their young (e.g 7yo) kid to programming by modifying games, what games did you start with?

Slightly OT: For those who have used TIC-80 or PICO-8 to introduce their young (e.g 7yo) kid to programming by modifying games, what games did you start with? And any other tips?

antirez 3y ago
I had quite some success applying my own LOAD81 to a few children. https://github.com/antirez/load81 https://github.com/antirez/load81
- throwaway71271 3y ago
  That looks seriously cool. Just the colors give me goosebumps :) completely offtopic: My dream is to build a super cheap child friendly computer, that the kids can build themselves, has a software keyboard that directly polls the gpio pins so that kids can modify their keyboard instead of having a keyboard controller (just so there is less mistery in what happens when a key is pressed). And the OS is something inspired from LEAP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_TlE_U_X3c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_TlE_U_X3c that allowing you to evaluate code and apply it to your current file. A bit like your LOAD81 but with text. I have a prototype now: https://github.com/jackdoe/programming-for-kids/blob/master/projects/back-to-the-future/prototype-back.jpg https://github.com/jackdoe/programming-for-kids/blob/master/... but it has a long way to go.
  - rahimnathwani 3y ago
    This looks seriously cool. May I ask how old your daughter was when you started working with her on this?
- rahimnathwani 3y ago
  Wow. I opened the triangle demo and I felt like I was transported back in time to when I had an Acorn Electron and would type in BASIC programs from listings in magazines. I was about 10 then. I hope my son (7yo) starts to find this stuff interesting soon.
throwaway71271 3y ago
I used a platformer game with levels, I dont remember its name, but the levels were very difficult, and at some point when my daughter was very frustrated I showed her how to edit the level variable and skip to the next level, and also how to modify the map. We did two games by following tutorials on youtube. Platformer tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6c6DvGK4lg&list=PLyhkEEoUjSQtUiSOu-N4BIrHBFtLNjkyE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6c6DvGK4lg&list=PLyhkEEoUjS... and also a top down adventure game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1wvvbVQ5zo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1wvvbVQ5zo My daughter is 12, so things are different, but we didnt go much further than that with pico8. We moved to python then arduino/microbit/etc and then to c and now to riscv assembler, and will circle back to python in a year or so. When she was 7-8 we spent more time with physical things, arduinos and etc (clap and light turns on kind of things) like this one: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EVXavpNGYEc https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EVXavpNGYEc
Nezteb 3y ago
I think p5.js [1] is difficult to beat when it comes to in-browser creative coding, games included. Daniel Shiffman has a YouTube playlist of various videos about making games with p5.js [2]. There is also p5play [3], which was made specifically for educational game development. [1] https://p5js.org https://p5js.org [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaGK-fj-BAM&list=PLRqwX-V7Uu6aRpfixWba8ZF6tJnZy5Mfw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaGK-fj-BAM&list=PLRqwX-V7Uu... [3] https://p5play.org/index.html https://p5play.org/index.html

Slightly OT: For those who have used TIC-80 or PICO-8 to introduce their young (e.g 7yo) kid to programming by modifying games, what games did you start with? And any other tips?

antirez 3y ago

I had quite some success applying my own LOAD81 to a few children. https://github.com/antirez/load81 https://github.com/antirez/load81

throwaway71271 3y ago
That looks seriously cool. Just the colors give me goosebumps :) completely offtopic: My dream is to build a super cheap child friendly computer, that the kids can build themselves, has a software keyboard that directly polls the gpio pins so that kids can modify their keyboard instead of having a keyboard controller (just so there is less mistery in what happens when a key is pressed). And the OS is something inspired from LEAP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_TlE_U_X3c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_TlE_U_X3c that allowing you to evaluate code and apply it to your current file. A bit like your LOAD81 but with text. I have a prototype now: https://github.com/jackdoe/programming-for-kids/blob/master/projects/back-to-the-future/prototype-back.jpg https://github.com/jackdoe/programming-for-kids/blob/master/... but it has a long way to go.
- rahimnathwani 3y ago
  This looks seriously cool. May I ask how old your daughter was when you started working with her on this?
rahimnathwani 3y ago
Wow. I opened the triangle demo and I felt like I was transported back in time to when I had an Acorn Electron and would type in BASIC programs from listings in magazines. I was about 10 then. I hope my son (7yo) starts to find this stuff interesting soon.

throwaway71271 3y ago

I used a platformer game with levels, I dont remember its name, but the levels were very difficult, and at some point when my daughter was very frustrated I showed her how to edit the level variable and skip to the next level, and also how to modify the map. We did two games by following tutorials on youtube. Platformer tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6c6DvGK4lg&list=PLyhkEEoUjSQtUiSOu-N4BIrHBFtLNjkyE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6c6DvGK4lg&list=PLyhkEEoUjS... and also a top down adventure game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1wvvbVQ5zo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1wvvbVQ5zo My daughter is 12, so things are different, but we didnt go much further than that with pico8. We moved to python then arduino/microbit/etc and then to c and now to riscv assembler, and will circle back to python in a year or so. When she was 7-8 we spent more time with physical things, arduinos and etc (clap and light turns on kind of things) like this one: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EVXavpNGYEc https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EVXavpNGYEc

Nezteb 3y ago

I think p5.js [1] is difficult to beat when it comes to in-browser creative coding, games included. Daniel Shiffman has a YouTube playlist of various videos about making games with p5.js [2]. There is also p5play [3], which was made specifically for educational game development. [1] https://p5js.org https://p5js.org [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaGK-fj-BAM&list=PLRqwX-V7Uu6aRpfixWba8ZF6tJnZy5Mfw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaGK-fj-BAM&list=PLRqwX-V7Uu... [3] https://p5play.org/index.html https://p5play.org/index.html