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

  • gaycomputeruser [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Godot is the only proper game engine that's libre that I'd recommend but it's probably too much for an 8y/o. I liked plantsrstillcool's suggestion of using something really simple. Another similar thing might be mcreator for minecraft. It's not foss (it is free) but they understand their audience is kids and the devs generally make appropriate in concern for their target audience. It has the advantage of integrating with an already really popular game.

    • ImSoOCD [they/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Agreed on Godot, although apparently their visual programming language is pretty good. I’ll check out MCreator

      • gaycomputeruser [she/her]
        ·
        3 years ago

        If you got any questions about minecraft stuff specifically if you go that route you can dm me I'm not the best but I've been doing technical mc for a long time.