Ask Slashdot: Tools For Teaching High School Kids How To Make Games?

First time accepted submitter nzyank writes "The other day I bravely (foolishly?) volunteered to conduct a video game development workshop at my boys' HS. This in Smallsville, Vermont with an average graduating class size of about 20. The idea is to meet once a week and actually create a game, start to finish. It will be open to would-be programmers, designers, artists, etc. I worked on a bunch of AAA titles back in the '90s, but I'm pretty much out of touch nowadays and I'm trying to figure out the best approach. The requirements are that it has to be one of either Windows/XBox or Android, since those are the platforms that I am current on. It has to be relatively simple for the kids to get up and running quickly, and it needs to be as close to free as possible. Teaching them to use stuff like Blender, C#, C++, Java, XNA, OpenGL and the Android SDK is probably a bit much. I was thinking of something like the Torque Engine, but they want $1000 for an academic license, which is never going to happen. I simply don't know what's out there nowadays and could really use some suggestions."

Best suggestion is Kodu

[InterestingFella]

For programmers best suggestion would be XNA and C# as it is really powerful while still being to program with, and you get support to all Windows, Xbox360 and Windows Phone 7. However, you noted that even XNA is probably a bit much.

However, MS Research also has come up with Kodu [microsoft.com] which is basically XNA and C# in even more suited package for kids. It's really easy to use and you can actually modify your game a lot. It's fully interface based, so there is no need for coding, but it is still fairly powerful and the best of all, you see

Scratch (scratch.mit.edu)

[andi75]

Check out http://scratch.mit.edu/ [mit.edu]. It sure looks like kiddy stuff at first glance, but its awesomeness cannot be described, you have to try it yourself.

Since scratch takes care about all the nitty-gritty details, you can focus on actually *designing* good games, which is awfully hard.

Python + Pygame

[sharp3]

Pygame is a pretty nice little package for quickly building 2D games. Fairly decent documentation and best of all, free! http://pygame.org/ [pygame.org]

Re:Best suggestion is Kodu

[aretae]

I've been teaching programming for a bit...For kids' learning there's a pretty clear top-of-the-list set Kodu -- XBox -- my 5 & 7 year old enjoy making these games a lot. -- Scratch -- My teen has used it. Logo -- I loved it as a kid, and it has fabulosu learning, but low video-game capabilities Lego Robotics -- Very good for learning programming, less so for video games. Android programming seems pretty easy for kids (My teen)...can use any dev environment you like. Eclipse, Android SDK, Java, you're ready to go. And you can put the results on your phone immediately.

Re:Best suggestion is Kodu

[Canazza]

You get the same thing out of Unity3D + C#. with the added bonus of it working on OSX, and it's free.

Re:Best suggestion is Kodu

[poly_pusher]

Unity: As well as working on IOS and Android if exporters are purchased. Want to get a kid interested? Tell them that they could put it on their phone and/or sell it in the app store...

It is by far one of the most straightforward applications for game development. The demo scene loads a fully completed level. Press the play button and the map is playable. Press pause and you go back to editing mode. Move some stuff around add or delete lights and press play again to see your changes. There are start to finish level design and mechanics tutorials, a great community, and it is highly intuitive.

This is perfect for teaching a kid how to make games.