Hello Everyone,

I’ve got a 10 year old daughter who loves making games in scratch, but she’s starting to run into that boundary where it stops working for you, and starts working against you.

She wants to make an adventure game in the vein of a trimmed down “legend of Zelda: link to the past”

I’ve looked at snap and gamefroot as potential next steps. Would consider a “true” language like JavaScript or python, but I’m worried she would be daunted if the ramp is too steep (maybe with the correct libraries/frameworks?) The immediate feedback and low ramp scratch offers are still important.

Anyone have any wisdom to share? Or point me to something I’ve missed?

Thanks

—- Update:

After some good discussion with my daughter, we’re going to try gamefroot (a proprietary, enhanced scratch) first.

She really wants to check out Gadot too.

Thanks everyone for the thoughtful comments and the help.

  • thejml@lemm.ee
    2·
    1 year ago

    I’d say Python, PHP, or something like godot.

    JavaScript/typescript threading and async stuff is quite a hill and modules are sometimes painful (though the same is true for python at times).

    Funny enough, actually know a few 10-12 year olds that learned Java, simply because they wanted to do things with Minecraft. Don’t underestimate her! Just be patient and learn together!

    • Rhs519OP
      1·
      1 year ago

      Thanks so much for the reply. Yeah - learning together is definitely going to be part of the fun.

      I’m not a professional coder, just some minor scripting for work and some very very old hobby coding.

      • thejml@lemm.ee
        1·
        1 year ago

        Well, what ever you pick, enjoy it! I’m sure we’d all love to hear about your (and her) experiences!