Game development for children

On or about 6/14/06 8:45 AM, thus spake "Sander Tekelenburg"
<tekelenbeuronet.nl>:

> I'm looking for a game development tool for a 10 year old. I taught him how
> to write basic HTML/CSS and now he wants to make games :) I would like to
> take the opportunity and use his interest to introduce him to some (very)
> basic programming. But it should be extremely easy -- get him hooked first,
> before confronting him with math and too abstract concepts. I'm hoping for
> something extremely object oriented (a bit a la Interface Builder I suppose)
> with a minimum of actual programming required, at least to start with.
> Ideally it would be geared towards game development already: make you create
> a general setting; characters; objectives; scoring system; etc.
>
> Bonus points if the resulting code is something that can be embedded in a
> web page and if this development environment is available for both Mac and
> Windows.
>
> Any suggestions?

<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05437>

m.
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On Wed, Jun 14, 2006 at 4:45 pm -0700, Sander Tekelenburg wrote:

>I'm looking for a game development tool for a 10 year old. I taught him how
>to write basic HTML/CSS and now he wants to make games :) I would like to
>take the opportunity and use his interest to introduce him to some (very)
>basic programming. But it should be extremely easy -- get him hooked first,
>before confronting him with math and too abstract concepts. I'm hoping for
>something extremely object oriented (a bit a la Interface Builder I suppose)
>with a minimum of actual programming required, at least to start with.
>Ideally it would be geared towards game development already: make you create
>a general setting; characters; objectives; scoring system; etc.
>
>Bonus points if the resulting code is something that can be embedded in a
>web page and if this development environment is available for both Mac and
>Windows.
>
>Any suggestions?

I don't have any personal experience of it, but is Squeak any use? It's
a Smalltalk implementation by (I believe) some of the original Smalltalk
people. It certainly qualifies on the OOP criterion :)

<http://www.squeak.org>

There's a page on game development here:

<http://www.squeak.org/Features/FunandGames/>

TimH

> I'm looking for a game development tool for a 10 year old. I taught him how
> to write basic HTML/CSS and now he wants to make games :) I would like to
> take the opportunity and use his interest to introduce him to some (very)
> basic programming. But it should be extremely easy -- get him hooked first,
> before confronting him with math and too abstract concepts. I'm hoping for
> something extremely object oriented (a bit a la Interface Builder I suppose)
> with a minimum of actual programming required, at least to start with.
> Ideally it would be geared towards game development already: make you create
> a general setting; characters; objectives; scoring system; etc.
>
> Bonus points if the resulting code is something that can be embedded in a
> web page and if this development environment is available for both Mac and
> Windows.
>
> Any suggestions?
>

Two of my boys, ages 8 and 11, have really enjoyed Power Game Factory by
Sawblade. http://www.sawbladesoftware.com/ It doesn't require programming
and standalone games can be created. Mac OS X-only.

-terry

The version of squeak for kits is Squeakland in:
> http://www.squeakland.org

this version also install a plugin for the web browsers, then you can
see some proyects for kids at NASA for example, in:

> http://connect.larc.nasa.gov/squeak.html

Is multiplataform, works in Mac, Linux and Windows.

At 11:03 -0700 UTC, on 2006-06-14, Matt Neuburg wrote:

> On or about 6/14/06 8:45 AM, thus spake "Sander Tekelenburg"
> <tekelenbeuronet.nl>:
>
>> I'm looking for a game development tool for a 10 year old.
>> [...]
>> Any suggestions?
>
> <http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05437>

Thanks. Stagecast <http://www.stagecast.com/> looks interesting. But its
installer requires Admin rights to and doesn't bother to explain what for :(
Does anyone know exactly what it will do with those Admin rights?


--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/~tekelenb/>

>I'm looking for a game development tool for a 10 year old. I taught him how
>to write basic HTML/CSS and now he wants to make games :) I would like to
>take the opportunity and use his interest to introduce him to some (very)
>basic programming. But it should be extremely easy -- get him hooked first,
>before confronting him with math and too abstract concepts. I'm hoping for
>something extremely object oriented (a bit a la Interface Builder I suppose)
>with a minimum of actual programming required, at least to start with.
>Ideally it would be geared towards game development already: make you create
>a general setting; characters; objectives; scoring system; etc.
>
>Bonus points if the resulting code is something that can be embedded in a
>web page and if this development environment is available for both Mac and
>Windows.
>
>Any suggestions?

Check out RevMedia and its big brother Revolution at
http://www.runrev.com plus the "Arcade Engine" plugin.

RevMedia/Revolution offer a cross-platform (Mac, Win, Unix)
HyperCard-like development environment but a lot more advanced than
HyperCard ever was. Sorry, not suitable for embedding in web except
when producing a thin-client that fetches the actual game through
web. Revolution can produce standalone executables. Not a true
object-oriented environment but one can term it "graphical pseudo
object-oriented".

RevMedia/Revolution are excellent for certain kinds of games. For
example, commercial game "Alida" was developed using it. Arcade
Engine is a nifty extension for making, you guessed, arcade-type
games.

10-years-old should not have trouble using this environment but it is
still a professional tool, so it will give him lots of room to grow
and develop his programming skills.

Robert

If the children already know HTML and CSS, the logical next step would
be JavaScript. Moving things around based on keyboard entry is pretty
easy to achieve, and building on things they already know might prove to
be a satisfying experience.

Lukas

While it didn't involve creating games, years ago, my son learned to program with a game called "Robotwar" on the Apple II. He moved on to Omega, a multi-platform tank-programming game which provided a point and click programming environment. Later he was involved with "Robowar" on the Mac (still around via a Yahoo group, but not very active). Eventually he became a robotics engineer at JPL (not bad considering that he hated math with a passion after 2nd grade).

He and I started a high school robotics team (FIRST Robotics Competition) where teams build 130 pound robots (programmed in C) to compete in 3-on-3 sports-like competitions (not cut and bash, more like soccer and football, first 15 seconds autonomous and then joystick controlled for 2 minutes). There is a junior version (FIRST Lego League for kids 9 to 14) which uses the Lego Mindstorms kits. The language, Robolab, is an offshoot of Labview (used to control the first Mars Rover) and is largely point and click, and each year the competition involves new challenges. This seems to be a good runway to programming. http://www.usfirst.org/jrobtcs/flego.htm

That said, I am also looking for a good environment for teaching game programming. Recently I bought a book, by a game programmer, on Ruby programming for non-programmers. It looks good but I haven't gotten into it yet: http://pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/fr_ltp/

I also ran into a Java-based robot-programming game called Robocode, and a new version was just released this month(free) at http://robocode.sourceforge.net/

Doug

I offer a second vote for Stagecast. I have had great success
introducing it to my kids (and others). They have since graduated to
more sophisticated languages, but nothing I have ever seen comes
close to Stagecast as an graphical intro to programming and
interactive game development. Have fun!
- John

I just saw this on the Apple Site. It was posted on June 21, 2006 in the development tools section. (Games can be easily ported to other platforms which is a plus for kids with PC-owning friends.)

"Torque Game Builder Make your game with the world’s most powerful 2D game engine, making use of sprites, scrolling backgrounds, 3D objects, TorqueNET Lite networking, physics, and collision detection.

The Game Builder Toolset, coupled with TorqueScript, allows easy access to user interface creation, effects, tiles, level building, and packaging. If you know Flash, Visual Basic, or other scripting language, you will have no problem coding in TorqueScript to make your game. "

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/development_tools/torquegamebuilder.html

Here is the main product page for Torque Game Builder:

http://www.garagegames.com/products/torque/tgb/

From the promo, it looks like kids would have a great time with this.

Doug

We really have tried to design TGB to be as powerful as full game developers want but with tools that make it easy for anyone to use. I think you will like the tutorials and find that a kid would not have a problem stepping through them. Feel free to check out the trial:

Trial Links: Windows - http://garagegames.fileburst.com/tgb/GetTorqueGameBuilder.exe Mac - http://garagegames.fileburst.com/tgb/GetTorqueGameBuilder.app.tgz

Also we are always interested in feedback so feel free to contact me if you have any suggestion/questions/feedback:

mattl AT garagegames DOT com

Matthew Langley TGB Dev Team Garage Games

On 14-jun-2006, at 17:45, Sander Tekelenburg wrote:

> I'm looking for a game development tool for a 10 year old. I taught
> him how
> to write basic HTML/CSS and now he wants to make games :) I would
> like to
> take the opportunity and use his interest to introduce him to some
> (very)
> basic programming. But it should be extremely easy -- get him
> hooked first,
> before confronting him with math and too abstract concepts. I'm
> hoping for
> something extremely object oriented (a bit a la Interface Builder I
> suppose)
> with a minimum of actual programming required, at least to start with.
> Ideally it would be geared towards game development already: make
> you create
> a general setting; characters; objectives; scoring system; etc.

And then there is Game Maker (http://www.gamemaker.nl) by Mark
Overmars. "...make exciting computer games, without the need to write
a single line of code". I know it is used in the computer science
course on a secondary school. I also know some 13-year olds who uses
it at home and they are enthousiastic.

The good news is it's free, the bad news is that it is only for
Windows. But hey, we have Boot Camp!

Kees

At 08:45 -0700 UTC, on 2006-06-14, Sander Tekelenburg wrote:

> I'm looking for a game development tool for a 10 year old.

I keep forgetting: I ended up with Alice, which seemed the most charming of
all the options. See <http://alice.org/>. I can recommend the demo to those
interested: <http://www.alice.org/Alice_movies/> (Flash and
javascript-dependant). Alice seems nicely object oriented, very graphical,
works on both Mac OS X and Windows, and it's even free. Not truly for game
development, but a fun, child friendly, graphical way to learn programming.


--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/~tekelenb/>

On or about 6/14/06 8:45 AM, thus spake "Sander Tekelenburg"
<tekelenbeuronet.nl>:

>I'm looking for a game development tool for a 10 year old. I taught him how
>to write basic HTML/CSS and now he wants to make games :) I would like to
>take the opportunity and use his interest to introduce him to some (very)
>basic programming. But it should be extremely easy -- get him hooked first,
>before confronting him with math and too abstract concepts. I'm hoping for
>something extremely object oriented (a bit a la Interface Builder I suppose)
>with a minimum of actual programming required, at least to start with.
>Ideally it would be geared towards game development already: make you create
>a general setting; characters; objectives; scoring system; etc.
>
>Bonus points if the resulting code is something that can be embedded in a
>web page and if this development environment is available for both Mac and
>Windows.


A very late followup to this thread, but I wanted to share a little "success story" about introducing programming to kids.

My older son is 5 years (soon 6) and often asks me what I do at work and why it is fun to sit in front of a computer all days (not that he doesn't like sitting in front of his computer watching movies, but still...). I've tried to explain to him how programming (which is what I do) is like writing a recipe for the computer and how fun it is to see the computer do what I've told it to, but I wanted to give him a first hand experience of what it's like.

So I found Scratch after looking through the other recommendations in this thread (Scratch wasn't mentioned though).
http://scratch.mit.edu/

"Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web."

It's free and works on Mac OS X and Windows (Java based). It feels very polished in spite of having a rather non-standard UI, but it is extremely easy to understand and get started with.


In under half an hour after opening Scratch for the first time, my son and I used the visual building blocks of Scratch to put together a little program with a picture of his little brother in a sprite, and we could make little brother jump, spin, zoom in and out and bounce around over the screen using the keyboard or shouting (!) at the computer. Great fun (my son laughed hysterically), and an excellent way to make a kid understand what programming is all about.



--
     Johan Sölve [FSA Member, Lasso Partner]
     Web Application/Lasso/FileMaker Developer
     MONTANIA SOFTWARE & SOLUTIONS
http://www.montania.se mailto:joh-nmontania.se
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At 08:45 -0700 UTC, on 2006-06-14, Sander Tekelenburg wrote:

> I'm looking for a game development tool for a 10 year old. [....]

I finally found something great: Scratch. See <http://scratch.mit.edu/>.

Scratch is the only thing I've found that met all my major requirements:
- Object-oriented (colour-coded Lego-like drag and droppable code objects
that can only be fitted together in ways that make sense, making it very easy
to quickly get going)
- Multilingual code -- with a single click, all code is translated to another
language (dutch in this case). Absolutely essential. Most children this age
hardly know any english.
- Available for both Mac OS X and Windows, so they can play with it on their
Windows box, while I can keep one step ahead on my Mac
- Code can be exported as a Java applet, and thus embedded in a Web page,
making it easy to show others what you've made

I tried it with a 10 and a 12 year old. Right in the first session, the 12
year old soon had 3 or 4 objects interact with each other. Way beyond what I
had expected. See <http://santek.no-ip.org/~st/scratch/>.

With the 10 year old there was only very little time available, so we didn't
get as far. But she had at least as much fun, creating a loop that had a
trumpeting elephant walk back and forth through a desert. Having it walk
upside down in one direction was particularly fun. This is your typical girly
girl, into dancing, anything pink, and anything sparkly. So I was quite happy
to have her discover that programming is just plain fun, before society has
had a chance to brain-wash her into believing it is something for boys only.

Both quickly started fantasizing about how to extend their games and what new
games would be cool to make. Scratch may become a hit overhere :)


--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/~tekelenb/>