I have a co-worker that is an engineer who is raising his two children. Their mother died in a tragic car wreck a couple years ago. The son is in second grade but fascinated with computers. They have already built a simple robot.
The boy wants to design and program his own computer game. The father wants to help him do it because far be it from him to discourage the kid from reaching his goals.
The question is, are there any simple programming or 3-d software kits that would make a simple game possible?
I've had a little experience with Autodesk 3-D studio and Animator Pro, and I don't even know if Animator Pro is still around. 7 years ago when I was playing with them I preferred Animator, because it was simpler, if not as powerful as 3-D studio.
Back when my dad had an 8088 I remember that he had a kids program called Dr. Logo that taught me basic programming.
I'm sure the kid would be happy if he even was able to do something like the old Frogger game or such.
any ideas? I know you guys know a heck of a lot more than I do about this.
AJ
[ October 10, 2003, 10:17 AM: Message edited by: BannaOj ]
Posted by T_Smith (Member # 3734) on :
In my HS class, we used Borland, using c++ language. For programming games, it was relatively simple, but then again, I knew the code.
Are you just looking for something where he can draw an image, and say up means go foward, down means go back and just skip the whole coding all together?
PS- one of the easiest programmable games, I think, is snake. Very very simple.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
You may want to look into the various kid level graphics programming languages, which generally use turtles. Such as this one: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/jcom/turtle/
The most famous turtle programming language is Logo, and there are sites that help learn that in many places, such as here: http://www.kidscanprogram.com/ and here: http://mckoss.com/logo/ (this looks like a good one)
This has been around for a while, and I always thought it looked interesting. It looks like the kid would be able to get a little character walking around in an environment pretty quick...
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
There are several roleplaying kits and adventure game kits available on the market for free; the old Bard's Tale Construction set is now freeware, as is the TADS Editor.
Obviously, 3D shooters aren't lining up to make their engines available -- although I believe there ARE a few FPS kits out there, actually. Most of the people who're into this subsist on mods -- pretty much no one writes his own engine anymore -- and quite a few of the best games make free mod editors available for download.
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
The "turtle" language is the venerable logo language, in one of it's forms. It's good for making animated shorts and the like, but I'm not so sure it will work for fast-paced games.
-Bok
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
I don't know how fast paced the game would be for a 2nd grader. I'm just going to e-mail the father the link to this thread so he can read all your great ideas. (this doesn't mean you can stop coming up with ideas though) !
AJ
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
I don't know much about "kid languages" but I would suggest basic. It's really simple and graphics are very easy (i.e. circle (10) draws a circle radius ten). Now if he actually wants 3D games that's another story. Listen to someone else for simple ideas, I didn't get into 3D until about 1.5 years of programming C++ and currently use the SDL media library to link to OpenGL which is probably a bit more complex than what you want.
Hobbes Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
May I alos suggest Mindstorm? It's this really cool lego set I got a few years back where you can actually program in various things, like how the motors react to different sensor input. If he liked building a robot he'd really like this. I don't know what it is now, but when I got it (4 years ago I think) it was over $200 so I don't know how well that works. I love it though!
[ October 10, 2003, 11:35 AM: Message edited by: Hobbes ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I highly suggest Logo as a good starting place; in particular, check out the second Logo link, it's a series of lessons for second graders.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Yeah that one has lots of nice kid level tutorials in logo. Its much more sophisticated than when I had it though!
AJ
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Maybe this will give other parents ideas too.
Here's another cool kids and robots site I forgot existed. I've actually met the woman that started this too.
The KISS Institut for Practical Robotics. http://www.kipr.org/ Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
I'm not really a programmer, so I can't help you with coding. But you may want to look into the modding community, too. Particularly games like Neverwinter Nights, and most RTSes, which come with all the editing tools for maps and scripted events.
When I was a kid, I had The Adventure Construciton Set, a game that let me easily create my own Ultima-style RPG adventures. I never really completed a project (which was par for the course for me at that age), but I had a lot of fun making objects and characters and worlds and dreaming about how fun being a game designer would be
Someone really ought to make something like that today ...
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
<taking a break from what turned out to be a very busy day at work>
I'm wondering if I should mention role-play gaming to the father. I know some parents are still a little leery about it and the kid is only in 2nd grade
However if he goes with an RPG that has a lot of books published he would learn statistics and probability by osmosis, which would be useful for computer game programming. He'd also learn about plot story lines and how crucial they are, since plot lines are more essential to modern computer games as well. The only thing is a lot of the RPGs do have a lot of violence in them since so many of the stats are for weapons. On the other hand I'm not as familiar with the more fantasy based RPG's because Steve tends to play the Cyberpunk varieties.
I really need to meet the kid and see what he's actually like. Maybe after I get my tonsils out we can have them over to dinner or something. His father says he is bored in school and while homeschooling isn't really possible, he needs challenging fun things to do at home. It sounds like he is pretty serious about wanting to learn how to program though.
AJ
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
One of the coolest things I ever had to do with Logo was make it do crazy stuff with the least amount of code possible. It was really cool to do all kinds of loops and other things that made that fweaking turtle FLY!
Posted by GradStudent (Member # 5088) on :
I worked with kids in a programming camp this summer. Lego Mindstorm is definitely the way to go. They have a very basic interface (as well as a more advanced one). But if the boy doesn't know any programming yet, this will teach him the basic concepts.
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