I have a niece who wants to make a video game. I have 0 experience teaching and am very likely to recommend her some crazy complicated shit that will turn her off to the idea. She’s 8. Anyone have experience with this? Her first instinct was to try and make games in the Roblox engine but I know exactly how exploitative that shit is and how nontransferable those skills are
Libre software is a must
You could try showing her Bitsy!
https://ledoux.itch.io/bitsy
It's a very simple game maker that does the behind the scene stuff for you. You still make little pixel art and dialogue and layout the game. There are a lot of people who do some really creative things with it. I can share a few of my favorites if you're interested
:this:
or even more simple try flickgame
Oh this one looks like it has a great ratio of accessibility to power
Here's a good tutorial on YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlXuD3kyVEr5sF4iM2CszNt-fSVZDqxUm