I'm a game designer. I moonlight teaching it to middle schoolers and adjunct at the university level, and I work on Bloxels, a game design tool.
When I got the itch to make games as a kid (late 80s, early 90s) it was in BASIC and it started with modding existing games (snake, gorillas, hammurabi) and then into making levels for DOOM to play with my friends. Didn't get into "real" coding until the iPhone dropped and I started making my own stuff and switched careers.
Lots of good recs here but here's my take:
- Twine might be just about right based on what you're saying your kiddo is into. It's about the closest thing to hypercard I've found- you string scenes together and with some modest work you can make a great dungeon crawler/choose your own adventure with inventory and variables, etc.
- Gamemaker might be a pretty great place to go after that. Plenty of legit indie games have been made with it. In my experience it's kinda like unity or unreal but less overwhelming. There are plenty of step-by-step "how to make an asteroids game" tuts out there, and based on your kid's interests, you could probably pick one and work through it together.
- Your kid is probably too advanced for scratch at this point, and might get frustrated. I think the Scratch mission is lovely and right, but if I'm 11 years old I want to build "cool stuff" but in Scratch it just takes too long to do that, and the ceiling is too low.
- Everyone who mentioned tabletop is spot-on....if you kid wants to understand how games really work. An exercise you can do is take a video game they like, and make the board game version. Classic example: Mariokart as boardgame. Makes you slow down and think about mechanics, how they combine and interact, player choices- all that. This is stepping up the learning, and pairs well with making stuff.
- Bloxels (which again, full disclosure, I work on) is a game design tool that might be worth a look. We try to have a low-floor (easy for newbs), high ceiling (experts can make cool stuff) and wide walls (big possibility space.) There's logic but no code. The public arcade and builder is here: play.bloxels.com
- Long term: There are SO many interesting things to do with games and in games. I'm excited for you and your kid and where you take it. Being a pretty new medium that comes from computers, it's easy to equate games with coding. But it can be and really is so much more. Have a good time with it.
When I got the itch to make games as a kid (late 80s, early 90s) it was in BASIC and it started with modding existing games (snake, gorillas, hammurabi) and then into making levels for DOOM to play with my friends. Didn't get into "real" coding until the iPhone dropped and I started making my own stuff and switched careers.
Lots of good recs here but here's my take:
- Twine might be just about right based on what you're saying your kiddo is into. It's about the closest thing to hypercard I've found- you string scenes together and with some modest work you can make a great dungeon crawler/choose your own adventure with inventory and variables, etc.
- Gamemaker might be a pretty great place to go after that. Plenty of legit indie games have been made with it. In my experience it's kinda like unity or unreal but less overwhelming. There are plenty of step-by-step "how to make an asteroids game" tuts out there, and based on your kid's interests, you could probably pick one and work through it together.
- Your kid is probably too advanced for scratch at this point, and might get frustrated. I think the Scratch mission is lovely and right, but if I'm 11 years old I want to build "cool stuff" but in Scratch it just takes too long to do that, and the ceiling is too low.
- Everyone who mentioned tabletop is spot-on....if you kid wants to understand how games really work. An exercise you can do is take a video game they like, and make the board game version. Classic example: Mariokart as boardgame. Makes you slow down and think about mechanics, how they combine and interact, player choices- all that. This is stepping up the learning, and pairs well with making stuff.
- Bloxels (which again, full disclosure, I work on) is a game design tool that might be worth a look. We try to have a low-floor (easy for newbs), high ceiling (experts can make cool stuff) and wide walls (big possibility space.) There's logic but no code. The public arcade and builder is here: play.bloxels.com
- Long term: There are SO many interesting things to do with games and in games. I'm excited for you and your kid and where you take it. Being a pretty new medium that comes from computers, it's easy to equate games with coding. But it can be and really is so much more. Have a good time with it.