The Adventure of Game Programming by Kids
One of the fields of programming that is very interesting and definitely catches the attention of children is video game programming. The idea of creating your very own game, with your own rules, is a very fascinating thought. That is one of the reasons which makes kids interested in that field, and also the fact that kids are already very familiar with video games, so they want to understand how they actually work behind the scenes.
There are many tools that allow you to create video games. Beginner tools that are perfect for introducing to younger children, like Scratch, and more advanced and more code-provided tools like Unity.
Let’s start with Scratch, which we also provide courses on. Scratch is the largest coding community and environment for children. It is a block-based programming language, meaning kids code by attaching existing commands to each other so they can learn the basics of programming. Even though Scratch’s basics and bare-bones are very simple, you still use the same concepts used in more advanced coding environments and languages like C# and Python.
For example, you have to use a lot of variables in all programming languages, which Scratch also shows children very nicely. You can create simple and complex video games and animations with Scratch. You can check out the community creations on the Scratch website and see all the fabulous creations made by other children so you can get inspiration from them, or even just play with them. Knowing that all of those very complex games on the Scratch website are all made with the same environment and simple interface is mind-blowing.
On the other hand, Unity is a game engine and is more advanced than Scratch; we also provide courses for Unity. Now Unity is the most popular game engine in the world. Many people have created many popular games and many others are learning and making starter games.
Unity makes you create everything from scratch (coincidentally) instead of giving you pre-made commands and lines for you to mess with. You have to code all the things in Unity using the C# programming language, which is also popular.
Let me give you an example of making a game in Unity. You might start by making a game idea, and then you can find a free pack which includes textures and characters in it on the Unity store. Then you code each of these “objects” and tell them how to behave with each other. That was a VERY simplified explanation of how you make a game in Unity.
