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Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do? (derp.foo)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Background :

My son hasn’t really showed any interest in computers until now. He’s been spending a lot of time over the last couple of weeks designing some sort of a game (on paper) and now he wants me to help him build it, whatever it is. I don’t want to let him down but I also know how much work that goes into a game (he specifically wants it to be 3D).

I’m a decent developer, although I’ve not done game development professionally I did tons of demos on the 90’s so I feel I know the basics of 3D math but I’m pretty sure he will lose interest if I try to teach him x86 assembler :)

Joke aside, what can I do? This sounds like a great project for us to explore together and hopefully he can grow interest in software design and development.

Are there development kits I can start with (unity?)

How do I keep the project “contained” so he feels that he accomplished something but still feels we developed something close to his vision?

Thank you HN.

There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Unity has a lot of tools out of the box and pieces you can purchase and license to put in a game. I would start there. I know godot is getting a lot more in the way of usability given unity's f-ups lately but I haven't seen that engine at all

[–] Jilanico 2 points 10 months ago

I've seen plenty of tutorials of Godot on YouTube, but maybe nudge him towards 2D first using Gamemaker or something? I don't know if 2D is necessarily easier, but I'd assume it is. I'm no expert so take with a grain of salt.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

You'll want to run with Unreal or Godot, or if you're feeling a bit indy try the Bevvy game engine, which is built in rust, and the crab holding a Glock to my head insists that this in of itself is a highly attractive feature of the engine!

[–] toasteecup 2 points 10 months ago

If you were comfortable with it, you could use python's pygame https://github.com/pygame/pygame/

I'm not sure how advanced of a game can be made in pygame, but you can definitely create some basic games in it.

After that would be godot https://godotengine.org/ or maybe unity but they seem like they might be on fire or something. But that would give you a full game engine. I believe the engine would allow for a more powerful game to be created.

Both have a good community and documentation, good luck and have fun!