29 replies to this topic

[The Legend]

Ummm... Don't underarestimate kids... I'm a kid and allready use GML.

Yeah I use GML and I'm 12. Of course though, it will be alot harder to explain if the kids are from another country.

I'm 13, and though I imagine that the kids here who have taken the initiative to learn GML on their own like us are much brighter.

[lballaty]

Hi,

I definitely try not to underestimate kids. I realize that many of the advice givers here are kids. But to be honest the kids answering questions on these forums are not the norm in the wider world. You're way ahead of most kids your age and you have the focus and drive that let's you do all this on your own. You know more than I do already and I just started learning this stuff ... well and dare I say it ... as I'm headed towards 60 ... I'm ancient to most of you.

I think it's fantastic that kids like you go out and get the knowledge yourselves. I will never catch up to you but I have some fun with this stuff anyway and sometimes I actually get to use something I learned either directly or indirectly in my job.

In my days we took apart old radios and put them back together made stuff from the parts ... sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't and most of the time we didn't know why and there wasn't anyone around to tell us what we did wrong ... but that was as close as I got until college to anything approaching the kind of information availalbe today on the internet .... we didn't really have the kind of access to information we have today.

I'm trying to provide enough information, guidance and a bit of structure to those that are interested but perhaps either don't know where to start, don't know what's possible or have limited access to information and technology and of course have the additional challenge of a language barrier.

I expect that the ones that catch on will be way ahead of me in no time at all and able to progress on their own and with help from forums like these.

My comments here are strictly based on my concrete experience with these particular kids in this club and the challenges I've encountered and should in now way be interpreted as an underestimation of kids in general. That being said .... some kids are quicker at this than others especially with the challenges they have here and I'm trying to give any who want to try a chance do this.

It's similar for adults ... except that for adults it's a lot more difficult to get that light to come on after a while .... well I don't want to underestimate or insult any adults either ...

I know that a good portion of the most active folks on these forums are young enough to be my grandchildren ... sigh ... and I know they're miles ahead of where I will never get to and I'm amazed and wish I'd been born a bit later. I see that you all help each other too and that is very positive in today's world.

All the basic projects in the club come from some tutorial or sample that one of you on the forum has produced and shared ... and I modify to suit my needs in these classes. It saves me a bit of time and provides ideas for projects to work on in the club.

I learn a whole lot from all of you and I appreciate everyone's feedback.

I'll post the last game we worked on so others can have a look at it at some point.

[PoniesForPeace]

The method you're trying seems to be fine, provided you're a patient and competent teacher. That said, I think the language barrier is your main problem here. Game Maker does it's best to guide you by itself by explaining each icon's function, but being totally except for the icons isn't good at all. To learn, they have to mess around with the program, and they can't mess around if they can't read. There's no Czech translation of the documentation, but if your kids can read any of the languages listed here, it would probably be helpful.

I think your best option is to have them learn English while teaching your programming class. You said you were translating things on the fly, so I propose you start making a sort of dictionary. Whenever one of them asks "what does this function do?" or "what does this mean?", you translate whatever they're asking about and write it down on a paper or a white board if you have one. At the end of each class, copy the updated dictionary into each computer and e-mail it to the kids as well. Over time, you'll compile a fair amount of Game Maker's documentation in Czech, and eventually they'll start memorizing English words and picking up on the language, so it will be easier to remember what the hell they're doing.

I also recommend that you encourage them not only to do the homework you give them but also try to mess around on their own. The fun part of programming is to program what you feel like programming, instead of just following whatever someone else is saying.

yep, kids will definitely want to do their own thing, let them be as creative as they can but give them help when they need it.

[Lukasmah]

Ummm... Don't underarestimate kids... I'm a kid and allready use GML.

Yeah I use GML and I'm 12. Of course though, it will be alot harder to explain if the kids are from another country.

What was that suposed to mean? Another country? Like... WUT? I'm pretty sure that means you think most of us are from... *Checks your profile info* My closet?

[Sparkstar]

I meant if they can't speak the language the proram and tutorials etc. are written in.

[segasonic5]

I started a game programing ... kind of computer club at my kid's school this year using GM.

It was a spur of the moment thing .... not much planning, because my son was interested and thought other kids would be too and he would spend some time playing the partial games I had created with GM and modifying them to suit himself.

.... so my approach was that I simply took the tutorials that exist and started going through how they work with the kids at our meetings one by one. From the very simple one with the moving, bouncing objects working toward mazes, platform etc.

Then we would add levels, change how the games worked etc. We worked our way up to the platform game tutorial and then we started a game of our own.

This worked fairly well for some kids but others got lost after a while and we had to review quite a bit.

I have to say that I'm not a professional programmer I play with this for fun so it's as much a learning experience for me.

Starting out I had kids from 5th grade to 9th grade. There were 12 of them. I'm down to 5 and 2 of them seem to be really catching on while the other three are a little lost but trying. You can quess the ages of the ones catching on vs the ones a little lost. The kids left are in 7th, 8th and 5th grades. So at very different stages of intelectual maturity.

I've learned a lot myself in the process and I can tell you it is no easy task to present the material in such a way that the majority get it. Especially when you have kids at varied levels.

I have an additional challenge in that the kid's primary language is Czech with only very little english spoken - so I translate everything ... on the fly. We basically set up a projector so that they could see what I'm doing and they try to do the same on their computer which has GM lite installed on it.

Then I give them things to try to do for the next meeting and those that try and have issues we go through them next time. It's a bit ad hoc.

I would like to put together some kind of intro course that would be suitable for kids. Something more organized that would allow me to more systematically teach the features available in the GUI to start and touch on the scripting.

I found that there is enough that can be done with the pre-made functions to allow one to create pretty nice basic games with just a little scripting to streamline a few things like game initialization.

If someone has something that could be used as a template for a course like this ... it would be great if you could share it.

I have heard that GM is used in schools but I haven't found much material online so far that would be suitable for the agegroup I have.

I'm only 11 years old and i'm making a game

[mrpeanut188]

I'm only 11 years old and i'm making a game

I was uh....... 7...... When I started Programming..... Didn't go too well.... Was I think.... 9 when I started GML. Also I'm almost 14 now so, doesn't matter.
This is an example of my first posts, of course, I've cleaned it up. Not quite as embarrasing.

Anyways, I'm over it. I'm not a noob. As in the thread, not getting help on 'a silver platter' helped me alot.
Love GM now.

[Edit]

I think it's fantastic that kids like you go out and get the knowledge yourselves. I will never catch up to you but I have some fun with this stuff anyway and sometimes I actually get to use something I learned either directly or indirectly in my job.

Personally, I'd rather be outside everyday, but I was raised on computers. I do love our pool, but most of the year it is too cold to swim. Thanks for the comp! Good Luck too!

Edited by mrpeanut188, 07 June 2012 - 06:31 AM.

[Lukasmah]

I'm only 11 years old and i'm making a game

I was uh....... 7...... When I started Programming..... Didn't go too well.... Was I think.... 9 when I started GML. Also I'm almost 14 now so, doesn't matter.
This is an example of my first posts, of course, I've cleaned it up. Not quite as embarrasing.

Anyways, I'm over it. I'm not a noob. As in the thread, not getting help on 'a silver platter' helped me alot.
Love GM now.

[Edit]

I think it's fantastic that kids like you go out and get the knowledge yourselves. I will never catch up to you but I have some fun with this stuff anyway and sometimes I actually get to use something I learned either directly or indirectly in my job.

Personally, I'd rather be outside everyday, but I was raised on computers. I do love our pool, but most of the year it is too cold to swim. Thanks for the comp! Good Luck too!

I'm about the same age as you (14 in few days), but I started working with GM when I was 11. Wish I knew about GM before.

[mrpeanut188]

I'm about the same age as you (14 in few days), but I started working with GM when I was 11. Wish I knew about GM before.

Eh. I'm starting to pull apart from Game Maker as after buying Left 4 Dead 2 for the Authoring Tools, I've had it for less than two months. And I have almost 100 hours.
That and GM is starting to get expensive. And 8.1+ don't agree with my computer. And...

[AdityaKale]

So far the most advanced we've gotten is with a bit of script manipulating the built in variables such as speed, gravity etc. Keeping score, health and inheritance to simplify the number of objects you have to program.

Then we've spent a bit of time on graphics as well. How to create an animated PNG file. How to manipulate the variables which control the way the animation acts etc. The internal graphical editor is very good for this and it's relatively simple and intuitive ... and doesn't require more s/w which is a plus.

I did try to get kids to start thinking about what kind of game they would like to create and 1 or 2 have started. This is very much self paced. I do notice that some kids are lost for quite a while and then a light comes on and they suddenly get something fundamental and they start thinking at a whole new level. But this can take many weeks and months with kids this young.

I do some troubleshooting excercises with them which they like a lot. I used to do this with my engineers in a past life when I needed them to understand our systems better .... I take a small game we've gone through and break it somehow. Then I show them how to go about finding what is wrong and later they try to fix other faults I put in on their own and if they get stuck they ask me and I point them in the right direction. Some are logical some are syntax etc.

I also have them try to create more levels of a game we've gone through, ie. another window, usually in the form of another room for now .... with different challenges etc.

I also created this kind of combination TD and Shooter engine with some levels for the more advanced kids and we look at the logic to control, waves, levels, scores, bonuses based on varios triggers. Plus with one kids I started looking a bit at AI so we've given some of the characters some intelligence to react to things going on in some way. Determine wherei the enemies are, which is closest, which is most threatening, how to avoid them, how to go after them, kind of basic algorithms but surprisingly some of them end up looking a lot more intelligent than they are with some simple tricks.

It's been fun for me thinking this stuff up to do for them but it has been rather disorganized and not documented

We're almost done for this year so I have some things to think about over the summer and try to put at least some kind of plan together for next year.

I have written a book "Basics Of Game Maker" (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007N6K79I) hope you find it useful