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Comment by donmcronald | Hacker News Reader

Would Godot be a decent engine for kids around 12-14 years old? I don't know a lot about it, but would like to suggest something for a person I know.

I'd also be curious what the Godot support is like in terms of maintaining older releases. I think it would be a mistake to tell a young person to use a beta version since they could hit a lot of bugs and get discouraged, but having them use an existing version that doesn't get a lot of new support might also be discouraging.

Does anyone have any thoughts on what they'd suggest for building a simple side scroller?

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GameMaker is pretty much the best game engine to get introduced to programming. It has a visual scripting tool that lets you write basic logic without any raw textual coding, but also provides a smooth transition path to learn an actual scripting language (GML) when the child becomes more ambitious. I’ve started programming at a young age thanks to this.

(Godot had a visual scripting system but they removed it in 4.0. And it wasn’t really intuitive to learn anyway, compared to how GameMaker does things.)

Gary Kitchen's GameMaker? I remember playing with that when I was a kid on the C64. That and SEUCK (Shoot Em Up Construction Kit)

Considering the mention of GML, my assumption is Mark Overmars's GameMaker.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameMaker

Note that the original GameMaker isn't around anymore. They moved on from that to their new engine GameMaker Studio, and apparently recently renamed that back to GameMaker again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameMaker#History

That looks pretty good. Thanks for the suggestion.

Just to add to your options, there's another, similar one called Construct.

https://www.construct.net/

Shameless self-plug: we make Construct, which has a visual block-based system, runs in the browser with no install, and also supports progressing on to JavaScript coding: https://editor.construct.net/

Maybe check out PhaserJS. By using a web engine, it can be easier for them to share their games. It’s also a more forgiving language and environment.

PyGame is also a good starting place.

If these two seem too elementary for their needs, consider Unity and Godot.

> By using a web engine, it can be easier for them to share their games

Godot and Unity allow exporting into web projects.

At least in Unity, there's lots of sharp edges around webgl.

On paper or to an engineer it might feel comparable but it just is not. WebGL introduces a lot of complexities.

Question for you and the sibling comment: What are the issues with WebGL, in your experience? It has been around for over a decade at this point, and I often wonder if it has yet to become a viable target.

My youngest (12K) is writing a 2D platform game in it (3.x). He's had exposure to Pico-8 and various other environments (as well as basic Python) and has spent a while figuring out the mechanics of things like double jumps entirely on his own.

(Oh, and he used Bolt visual scripting in Unity for a while, with decent results until we decided that Godot was much less hassle.)

I'd say that he has come across zero bugs so far.

Recently I learned something named GDevelop exists. Not sure how good it is, but it might be one of the options to consider.

If they know any programming language (Python in particular) then yeah it's probably fine. Otherwise, they'll need some help getting oriented.

I'd get them started on something like Construct 3, or maybe Pico-8.

Godot 3 is pretty well supported and maintained for now. It's a great engine for smaller or personal projects IMO. Really reduces the barrier to entry to make a game, especially 2D or basic 3D

It depends on what kind of games they want to make and what they hope to get out of it.

A simple side scroller? Gamemaker.

A more-advanced 2D game? Gamemaker or Unity.

A 3D game? Unity.

An FPS or other first-person game? Unreal.

Programming skills that will be useful for a career in programming generally or in game development specifically? Unity or Unreal.

With Godot, you'll be perpetually waiting for Godot to finish up and polish the 30% of features you actually want/need. I gave Godot 5 years before I gave up on it. Unity has announced, implemented, and abandoned features in less time than it takes Godot to finish that last 30%.

Well, it depends on the kids, of course. For 2D games, I think Gamemaker is more accessible and easier to learn, and you get results more quickly.

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