Current resources for 8 year old who wants to program games

November 15, 2020 8:28 AM

I have an 8-year-old boy who wants to learn how to program games. What are the resources I should assemble?

A complete curriculum with guided exercises and/or videos would be great. We are willing to pay for good resources.

posted by Number Used Once to Education (9 answers total)

check out the outschool offerings
posted by fingersandtoes at 8:39 AM on November 15, 2020

If he has a Switch, FUZE4 looks like an amazing, inexpensive, all-inclusive introduction to coding games.
posted by eschatfische at 8:44 AM on November 15, 2020

I just watched a video about this org that seems really cool. It's a game you play that you have to "fix" and edit as you go along.

https://eraseallkittens.com/
posted by gideonfrog at 9:55 AM on November 15, 2020

Scratch is also a great free online tool for stuff like that. My library has a bunch of books on projects you can do on Scratch, including a lot of simple video games.
posted by gideonfrog at 10:11 AM on November 15, 2020 [5 favorites]

My son started with Scratch and Inform, and then moved into Python and Java. A lot depends on if he's a sit down and study (or search and watch tutorials) person or a twiddle-with-things person.
posted by rikschell at 10:46 AM on November 15, 2020

This is aimed at a school setting but should give you guidance on how he can plan and build a game in Scratch http://code-it.co.uk/scratch/primarygamesmaker/primarygamesmakeroverview
posted by crocomancer at 11:24 AM on November 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

Ooh, ooh, there is a FPP on the blue about the Raspberry Pi 400, a cheap computer-in-a-keyboard that runs Linux (or you can get an older Pi and use your own keyboard & mouse). Either way, the cool news here is that it has a GPIO port, and Scratch will interface with various hardware, so you can get input from different kinds of sensors and power motors and servos and things.
posted by rikschell at 12:28 PM on November 15, 2020

Scratch is awesome. Here’s a book we have in my classroom for coding games on the platform link.

It’s a pretty accessible book and my students have used it successfully. But in scratch you can also just experiment.
posted by mai at 1:11 PM on November 15, 2020

Nthing Scratch, which my 8yo loves. We did a series of Scratch classes with this company and they were really great.
posted by LKWorking at 12:18 PM on November 16, 2020