Hacker News Reader

That sounds rad. I’d love to get my kids into this. Got any links to your particular setup?

The game dev environment they’re talking about is MakeCode Arcade. I’m also a big fan of it.

There are a number of little handheld gadgets that you can use with MakeCode—scroll down on the homepage and there’s a section that shows them all:

https://arcade.makecode.com/

Yeah that’s it! I recognize the Micro Bit Arcade Shield and the Retro Arcade as what he’s been using when he shows me demos.

I LOVE that he gets to code in Scratch but can jump into Python or JavaScript at any time without the IDE changing. It’s a clear stepping stone.

My boys (then 10 and 8) loved MakeCode Arcade. I promised that if they wrote an original game - rather than following the great tutorials - then I'd make them a physical setup with a Pi Zero and some classic arcade buttons. They were very motivated and learned a lot.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com