HTML5 games! They're easy, quick to set up, the feedback is instant and they're fun to play! I've been making HTML5 games as part of short, two hour collaborative coding exercises at work and it's awesome. Here's a recent one we did based on Flappy Bird [1].

I made a few bootstrap scripts here [2] to make it easier to get up and running.

1. https://github.com/hoorayimhelping/Flabby-Bird 2. https://github.com/hoorayimhelping/HTML5-GameKit

I recommend http://phaser.io/

I've created a tutorial for making a 2D version of Minecraft using Python and Pygame. Obviously the end result is a _much_ simpler game than Minecraft, but it is useful in teaching things like 2D arrays and dictionaries.

http://usingpython.com/pygame-intro/

Thanks. That will be fun to look at too.

If you do try the tutorial, i'd love to see what you create! :)

I cannot recommend pyglet strongly enough for learning graphics and game programming, it is so quick to get started with.

I wonder if anyone has written some learn to code tutorials with it.

My wife recently began learning python with the book "Hello Python." It seems like a solid intro from what I read. The book uses hunt the wumpus as its starting example. If you combine that with Steve Johnson's excellent Pyglet tutorial[1] you could probably get to writing games pretty quick.

[1] http://steveasleep.com/pyglettutorial.html

A few years back it seemed that pyglet was dead. I am glad to see that this isn't the case.