Game design for kids

clairefontaine

This may be unanswerable, possibly futile but that's why I am throwing it out there.

Are there any programs to assist children with designing their own games? And by kids, I mean young kids.

I've started working with gamemaker studio learning as I teach so to speak.

Any other good places to start?

Thank you very much.

Kilgore__Trout

You could try Scratch. Never used it, but saw in action. Haven't used Game Maker either, but I suspect Scratch is easier to use (and less versatile/powerful) than Game Maker. If you're dealing with young kids, easy is what you want.

You don't need to know programming as such, but using it would likely help teach some of the fundamentals of programming.

RedXIV

Definitely Scratch, I teach it at a local coderdojo, and its effective for kids as young as 7 I've seen. Think I have a set ofttutorials somewhere I can dig out

www.learnscratch.org is supposedly very good?

clairefontaine

I don'w what is wrong with me, I find gamemaker easier than scratch. Scratch is confusing me.

RedXIV

clairefontaine wrote: »

I don'w what is wrong with me, I find gamemaker easier than scratch. Scratch is confusing me.

If you are familiar with code, game maker is easier to work with. Scratch does make it easier to get kids into the development mindset and changes are easy and quickly visible. However it does use strange terms as well making common things very difficult (usually logic based) and some difficult things easy (usually rendering or animating based)

clairefontaine

RedXIV wrote: »

If you are familiar with code, game maker is easier to work with. Scratch does make it easier to get kids into the development mindset and changes are easy and quickly visible. However it does use strange terms as well making common things very difficult (usually logic based) and some difficult things easy (usually rendering or animating based)

MAybe that's it.

I'm not all that familiar with it, learned some A LONG TIME AGO in middle school and high school, probably early memory has my expectations more align with gamemaker. I feel like there is better control with gamemaker because I understand more what is going on. With scratch I feel like by them trying to make it easier for me, I have less of an understanding of exactly what is going on, which is what is making it more confusing if you get me.

So what I'd like to do next and not sure if it's possible, is be able to get some animation he made from an ipad app and get it onto the pc, which then can be used in a video game made on either gamemaker or scratch.

RedXIV

clairefontaine wrote: »

So what I'd like to do next and not sure if it's possible, is be able to get some animation he made from an ipad app and get it onto the pc, which then can be used in a video game made on either gamemaker or scratch.

Can't really help you with this without a lot of technical information with it. But it sounds like a headache straight away. Scratch can handle images but isn't great with animations

clairefontaine

I wrote to Nintendo because I thought it would be a good idea for my boy to see the offices and see how it's all done.

They couldn't accommodate this request becuase of insurance or something like that, but they sent me tons of explanations and advice on making a good video game. I am so excited.

RedXIV

Nintendo don't have an office in Ireland, which could explain why you didn't get into the office I used to work for them and used to have to fly to England regularly to go to meetings.

There's a number of other game studios in Dublin though, some of them big too, like Activision Blizzard in Clontarf or some of the newer ones like Digit games or Playfirst have offices too, maybe you could contact some of them? Try http://www.gamedevelopers.ie for contact details

Torakx

I tried Digit quite recently to get my group in to get a look at the dev process. Had a nice meeting with a lady called Rosie in HR and was informed they are completely swamped right now with the launch of their game King of Realms and wouldn't be able to get time to do that.
They do however appear to be very organised and professional and will be a sucess I am sure. So would be worth it to get a look at the process if you can.
Worth a try, especially if you have something to offer them that might benefit them.
They may see potential in getting involved with someone working with schools etc. But seemed quite busy.
But hey they can only say no right?

Kilgore__Trout

clairefontaine wrote: »

So what I'd like to do next and not sure if it's possible, is be able to get some animation he made from an ipad app and get it onto the pc, which then can be used in a video game made on either gamemaker or scratch.

Haven't used GM, so not sure how animation works. Might require some coding if they haven't automated it. I have code for animating sprites in C#, but I'm not sure if that would work in GM.

If you find you are constantly running into difficult problems, it might be worth taking a step back. Tutorials are a great way to get familiar with the basics, and there are likely to be some very good ones on youtube. It's also nice that you are left with something that actually works at the end of it. I spent 2 months exclusively doing tutorials, and picked up 100s of little tricks that helped make the process of working on my own game less difficult and frustrating.

Torakx

Game maker is very nice for sprite sheets. Very flexible and has its own editor which is suprisingly good considering.
That side of things should be easy enough in comparison to other programs.
The whole coding aspect I found frustrating because you have all these windows open for different objects and code. But some people may take quickly to the drag and drop for basic stuff.
Might be a good place for starting out.
I also know people who have gone from XNA development to GameMaker for making 2D games as a business. So wouldn't slate it for semi professional use either.