When playing video games got out of hand during Christmas holidays 9-year old Ian’s father urged his son to pick up his guitar, play LEGO or paint something. The boy responded with the wish to learn programming his own game. (You can watch Ian talk about his game on their website.)
“When in doubt, consume less and create more. The world will thank you.” –
Thomas Steiner, father of 9- year old Ian
Khan Academy was the perfect starting point for Ian. The free website covers math and the fundamentals of programming on the Khan Academy Computer Science platform. Kids can explore programs made by others, write their own programs and share them.
With little guidance from his dad – who had interest in programming but only basic programming skills himself – along with the tutorials Ian soon grasped basic programming concepts like drawing objects, variables, animation basics, functions, logic and if statements, looping and arrays.
After he finishing his first version of “Meteor Kids” in ProcessingJS and putting it on a website for friends and family to play, Ian’s only comment was:
“I want to make an iPhone version”
After Ian finished the game artwork on an iPad the duo got themselves some iOS books, signed up for online Objective-C tutorials and dug in. Ian’s passion and interest over the coming weeks kept the project going and with some assistance from his dad he successfully made an iOS version of “Meteor Kids”.
It might not be the greatest game in the world, but it’s has lovely artwork and is insanely hard and fun. Ian’s goal is to reach 1.000 downloads on iTunes.
Project Website: www.gamebykids.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/GameByKids
Price: FREE without ads