| > Or there's the time-tested path to gamedev: modding existing games. Definitely for kids, modding an existing game is the right way to go. It will be way more fun, and it'll be a lot more motivating to share things with friends than to do stuff because dad said so. I think you're also right that Unity is better but it's still pretty challenging. Programming is really crazy hard, especially for young kids. That's despite great things like Code.org and Scratch. Those activities are substantiated by good observational (qualitative) evidence measuring creativity, not programming ability. The only hard quantitative data people have is engagement time--that kids spend more time in apps than equivalent regular instruction when learning idiosyncratic turtle graphics in apps. Pretty unsurprising in my opinion. As far as I know, there is no evidence that these pre-high school programming experiences retain acceptably-performing students in high school programming like AP Computer Science better than forcing them to take the class. Scratch's educational mission, which I am most familiar with, has for now not made such test-based outcomes an investigative priority. Honestly an old-school 3D shooter is just about the worst thing you can coerce a disinterested kid into doing. If they're pre-puberty and still care what dad thinks, this sort of activity is exactly what kids drop when they get older. If they're in high school and don't care what dad thinks: it's not a multiplayer game, it doesn't inhabit some social space/it isn't a "third place," it's not taking advantage of the greatest power of the classroom in high school, peer pressure. This is based on my experience making a game that kids 12+ regularly mod, being the only kid in high school that programmed regularly before 18, and interacting with (but not conducting research with) the wonderful people at Scratch, who really do know how to make algorithmic thinking and creativity work for kids 12 and younger. Maybe at Stuyvesant parents are making the kids learn C++, but you gotta understand that coercion is the placebo, not the treatment. If you're going to coerce your kids into doing something incredibly boring, it might as well be whatever narrow testing regime is hot these days and not what we fantasize vicariously they should be interested in doing. |