Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?

Re:Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What ca... by burrish on Thursday January 18, 2024 @03:22AM (#39039322)

This ! Learning to code will come after, spending time with your son writing down ideas might be more fun at first and it's a good time to teach him that games are thoughts first and then coded after.

I would have recommended Scratch [1] for a first introduction instead of hoping into code right away, but since he is 9yo he will most likely want to hop on big game engine like he sees his favorite youtubers doing.

so while you guys are thinking about ideas, you should look up and compare engine in this thread and learn one, then teach him and make the game/prototype together later.

[1] - https://scratch.mit.edu/

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Re:Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What ca... by antupis on Thursday January 18, 2024 @05:12AM (#39040024)

you can also make games with Scratch eg https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/888899999/ . Another option is Replit that also has plenty of games ready https://replit.com/community/games

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Re:Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What ca... by cben on Monday January 22, 2024 @05:53PM (#39096705)

There is also Snap! (https://snap.berkeley.edu/) which starts very much like Scratch but has higher ceiling. The deepest pedagogical benefit is you can easily build for him custom blocks — even custom control structures — to give the scaffolding that will let him focus on the programming style/aspects you want him to learn at that point.

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