We’re making a game!
Eliana is arguably a bigger gamer than I am, playing on everything from mobile to console. She’s gotten the hang of holding a controller now (it’s amazing to see the difference in how she interacts with media coming from touch screen) and she always wonders why things in games are the way they are. “Daddy, why doesn’t she does this instead?”
With her 5th birthday taking place this past week and the holidays coming up soon, we decided to do some fun “Daddy-Daughter” creative things together. We’re writing a short children’s book for NaNoWriMo, we’re making a movie, and we’re practicing her art skills. We were hoping to have her create the Christmas presents she will be giving to the rest of the family (instead of just buying things).
Then it hit me: Why don’t we make a game together? I’ve been itching to get back into hobby coding, having made plenty of games in RPGMaker waaaaay back in the day, and this is the perfect opportunity. I can learn some of the newer game-making software and at the same time teach her about taking a project from start to finish. Whether it will end up being any good is entirely up to how much time and dedication we’re able to give it, but at least we’re going to try.
So what kind of game is it going to be? We don’t know yet. We’re going to brainstorm the idea on the next audio episode of Kid In Play and hope to have at least a vague idea of what the direction will be. I’m going to let her make the majority of the creative decisions. Keeping a five year old focused and not shooting for the moon will be a challenge, but one I’m willing to take up. Our target completion date is the week before Christmas, so that I can have time to package the game, make copies and get them ready for gifting. I have a few vacation days left at the office that I plan on using for this project, so that should help in case of backlogged work.
Because I’m strapped for funds, I’ll be evaluating the free versions of both GameSalad and GameMaker. This is fine, as the game isn’t meant to be earth-shattering in complexity. If we get far enough along that we feel we need to upgrade our development software, we’ll do that. I’m using this as a sort of stepping stone for me on a path to get accustomed to coding in the first place.
I’ll be posting weekly updates, and possibly more depending on how much we’re getting done.
Hopefully many of you non-developer friends will be inspired to do the same with your kids or by yourselves. Feel free to give us pointers along the way, too! We’re looking forward to sharing with you!
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