Ask HN: 10 year old girl with creative stop motion art wants to program a game

Posted by julianpye on Saturday April 16, 2016 @04:09PM
from the ask-hn dept.

At my son's birthday party today, a friend's daughter said to me 'you know how to program games and apps. I have some ideas and I want to program a game'. She showed me some really wicked stop-motion video she created with hand-drawn graphics (sharks hunting sharks underwater). I asked about her primary goal - it is mobile phones (1), tablets (2), PC(3), not consoles. Her dad would set up a Linux PC for her, though she can use her mom's Windows PC, too.

Any people with experience here - what would be the easiest way for her to start?

( 6 comments | 4 points | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: 10 year old girl with creative stop motion art wa... by dragonbonheur on Saturday April 16, 2016 @06:03PM (#11512466)

Commercial with free versions: Game maker, Multimedia Fusion, Adventure Maker, Engine001.

Free: Tululoo Game maker (outputs to HTML5), Game Editor, Wintermute engine, Adventure Game Studio.

Programming languages: Browser Basic (Outputs to Html5), MonkeyX (desktop and HTML5, paid for other platform targets), BlitzBasic, BlitzMax, FreeBasic, QB64, Gideros mobile.

http://www.tululoo.com

http://pewtersoftware.com/browserbasic/

http://fbide.freebasic.net/download

http://www.qb64.net

http://www.blitzbasic.com

http://www.monkey-x.com

http://giderosmobile.com

Other game creation resources:

http://www.ambrosine.com/resource.html

http://freegameslist.weebly.com/game-creation-tools.html

A really good sprite editor:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/pixelaria/

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: 10 year old girl with creative stop motion art wa... by charlieegan3 on Saturday April 16, 2016 @04:36PM (#11512150)

Perhaps something web based like this? https://ceilfire.com/editor

At the end of the day she's going to need to learn some basic programming, Scratch is the default recommendation but I like to recommend Ruby Warrior: https://www.bloc.io/ruby-warrior#/ I think a 10 year old would get that.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: 10 year old girl with creative stop motion art wa... by detaro on Saturday April 16, 2016 @04:22PM (#11512110)

Maybe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratch_(programming_language), although I'm not sure if there is a phone/tablet version?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: 10 year old girl with creative stop motion art wa... by julianpye on Saturday April 16, 2016 @04:34PM (#11512142)

I think she is into the output. 15 years ago I would have said Macromedia Director. I don't know what the equivalent would be nowadays.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: 10 year old girl with creative stop motion art wa... by charlieegan3 on Saturday April 16, 2016 @04:40PM (#11512165)

If she does have access to a tablet http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/ is worth checking out too. (though `distribution' isn't a thing)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: 10 year old girl with creative stop motion art wa... by megacity on Saturday April 16, 2016 @04:40PM (#11512168)

Something like rpgmaker maybe?: https://www.rpgmakerweb.com/

[ Parent | on HN ]