My son (8) really wants to grow up and develop games for Nintendo - How can I best lead him on this path/get him started in learning?

1

Scratch

There is always the scratch. Good for simple intro to programming. https://scratch.mit.edu.

#Kids Education #Programming #Coding 558 social mentions

2

GameMaker Studio

#Game Development #Game Engine #3D Game Engine 36 social mentions

3

Unity

He should pick an engine and just make games in it over and over until he's fluent with it. Doesn't matter if it's a simple little engine like Pico-8, something big and complicated like Unity, or something in between. Just pick some platform and start making games. They don't have to be fun, or pretty, or efficient. The goal is to get fluent with an engine. Here's a list of some engines. Some will require coding, some won't. If he's really interested in programming, PyGame might be a good start.

#Game Development #Game Engine #3D Game Engine 197 social mentions

Once he feels like he knows the engine he chose, have him test his skills in game dev code jams. Code jams usually give a theme and a time limit, and everything must be created in that time limit. Ludum Dare is probably the most famous one, but there are tons happening all the time. Just pick a weekend, pick a jam, and get ready to pull an all-nighter.

#Game Development #Mobile Apps #Religion 4 social mentions

5

itch.io

Unity is a good place to start and there are a lot of tutorials around the internet to help get going, such as Brackeys': https://www.youtube.com/c/Brackeys or started tutorials like "Nothing to Snake in tow hours" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJaItSFG4sg He could also start publishing small games of his own on an easy-to-access platform like itch.io.

#Games #Comparison #Online Shopping 7498 social mentions