So what's out there for video game design for little kids?

[Sarah0000]

Or even DIY ideas rather than actual programs?

 

DS has been building video game levels with c rods. Basically they are like old school side scrolling games with platforms to jump between and trees to climb, bad guy rods to defeat, and evil coins to destroy. When he plays the levels it looks like a cross between an action and logic game.

 

He's four and while he is pretty good with handwriting and drawing for his age I don't think he's up to hand drawing levels on paper. He's gone through parts of code.org, played Lightbot, and a little with Scratch Jr, so he is use to thinking through basic programming steps. I know he's more interested in the physical design and story of the games than in actually programming one though.

 

He runs out of rods and has to destroy previous levels to build new ones. He says he would like to save his levels in some way. I think he would be fine with something on paper or on the computer or...something else? Ideas?

 

Is this the kind of thing Minecraft is good for? I've never seen Minecraft but he's been talking about it, I think from a Minecraft inspired unit on code.org.

[Dmmetler]

Neopets has several games that include level constructors, where you can create, play and submit your own levels. The Hannah games are what my DD11 suggests might be the closest fit. I think there's something you can do for the Nintendo systems to build Mario games, too, but we don't have any consoles. I've just seen friends talking about it on FB ;).

 

DD says there are several sites online to build games, too, but she's not sure that she'd recommend any for a 4 yr old except for Scratch, since "sometimes people get mean".

 

 

Edited August 9, 2016 by dmmetler

[Cake and Pi]

My 4.5yo does that too!  He uses our base-10 blocks, tally sticks, and interlocking cubes though.  His handwriting and fine motor skills are about right for his age, and he does draw out levels on paper (usually integrated into his math or geography worksheets), which I stick in a 3-ring binder for him to keep.   And yeah, I was totally going to suggest you look into Minecraft.  I've never played it myself, but I've watched my kid brother play a handful of times.  It looks like a lot of building and manipulating of the environment.  I'm curious to see if anyone who has actually played will chime in about it.

[Dmmetler]

DD also says that both Lego and Knex have video game based sets, but they may be a little hard for a 4 yr old. The Angry Birds Lego sets apparently involve a lot of the technics pieces to allow motion, which are harder to put together.

 

 

[Guest]

Try gamemaker. Its drag and drop, so you can easily help out.

[MomatHWTK]

We started with Tynker and have graduated to Game Maker Studio.

[Sarah0000]

Thanks! I'll take a look at these suggestions to see what he likes. He does have a lot of K'nex and Lego pieces including Plants vs Zombies sets so I can at least suggest that to him since he has a lot more of those pieces than c rods. But then there's still the problem of his little brother destroying everything.

[annettek]

Tynker is great.