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Ask HN: Looking for a software to code a game with my 8yo kid
5 points by xgbi on March 22, 2020 | hide | past | favorite | 8 comments
Hi,

We’re confined and my 8yo girl has started designing a video game on paper, centered around horses and riders.

She's asking me if we could actually program that and have a real thing to show.

Since we’re stuck for the moment, i’d like to give it a shot.

Do you guys know if there is software out there that has a basic structure in which we could start coding? Something woth a bit of asset mgmt, siund and so on..?

Ideally open source but I can spare a few bucks



https://scratch.mit.edu/


Have a look at love2d[0] - (or Löve, as they prefer it to be called) It's a lua-scriptable game framework, where you can at least see results fairly quickly. All you need is a text editor and the lua executable. It's only thought for 2d games, but it's got an integrated physics engine (Box2d) and a bunch of libraries to help with all kinds of things that might come up.

And the community was absolutely lovely last time I checked :)

[0]love2d.org/


PICO8 might suit your needs if it is a simple game where the focus is on teaching.


Not exactly what you are looking for but I have heard good things about Dreams on PS4 (https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/dreams-ps4/). I have bought it but haven't really had a chance to try it yet.

It may not teach programming but might be good enough to learn about basics of logic, design, assets management, music, sound, etc.


GameMaker Studio might be worth a look. It's $39, but there's a 30-day trial as well. From what I can tell, it's a simpler, more user-friendly alternative to the likes of Unity. Also, it's from the creator of Lemmings (although he's since moved on).

https://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker


I made a game for Android. Unfortunately the tooling needed is too hard to explain. But it might help pass the time.

http://daly.axiom-developer.org/apps/MahLetters-release.apk


Construct is a little outdated but still good. Using events instead of code. It took half an hour to make a little race car game with my 5 year old, and she started tweaking things like designing the cars and how the race behaves. There's collision detection, etc, built in.


https://godotengine.org/

I've heard good things about it, but never used it. When I get around to the project that needs it, I plan to.




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