advice on how to start my son off in Flash

[venton]

I've got an 8 yr old son who loves playing computer games and designing games on paper.
I am a professional programmer using visual basic mainly for .net web applications.
I am keen to introduce my son to simple programming, but to be honest vb.net is going to be very boring introduction for him and I don't want to put him off.
He likes playing flash games online, but I have zero knowledge on how to go about starting him off with helping him write simple games and learning programming.
I have got experience in writing games a long time ago in Basic and machine code on older machines, so think I could help him along.
I think Flash could be the way to get him started.

My question is, what do I need to get to start him off from the very beginning in writing simple games and learning how to program in Flash?
I really have no knowledge, so any help appreciated, eg what software editor do I need? Any good books? etc..
Just nice and simple stuff to begin with such as pong or snake or any old basic games hopefully to give him the bug. I love programming and I'd like to get him hooked too (good job prospects for the future..)

Many thanks

[Christov]

You want to get your son into programming Flash games aged 8?
That's borderline child abuse! :P

Haha, all joking aside...

If you can afford to invest in Flash, that would be a brilliant start. Download the 30 Day trial to give your son a taste of the program and give yourself an insight into how it works. Then have a look at the tutorials actually written and displayed on www.kirupa.com (http://www.kirupa.com), any other tutorials you will probably be able to find on www.pixel2life.com (http://www.pixel2life.com) or by searching through google.

I wouldn't buy a book for the time being, the vast majority of the information that he will need to get started can be found for free on the Internet.

[venton]

Thanks for reply.
I am showing my age but in a way I kind of miss the old home computers with BASIC on them. (Atari's, BBCs, Spectrums).
It wouldn't be any big deal to show an eight year old how to knock up a simple program...or get them to type in listings from magazines.
I am just finding it hard to get my head round an easy way to get quick results from minimal programming. I am worried that if I buy Flash it will take ages to get anything up and running which will mean the quick onset of boredom for him and loss of an opportunity.
But thanks for tips, I will download the 30 day trial and see how I get on.

[ArmoredSandwich]

what kind of games are the games he designed on paper?

I would suggest you'd help him with what he wants to create, thats the best way imo.

I think that I first tried to program something when I was 11 or something. The problem was that I couldnt understand anything myself and that I was unable to find tutorials that actually explained things.

Maybe 8 is a bit young tho. 8 Year olds, dont really know much about math eh. Im pretty sure youll need atleast the knowledge of adding and substracting (movement), and multiplying and dividing probably as well. AND he needs to know the concept of a variable and I do not think an 8 year can.

Dont get me wrong, i do think its a great idea and that you should start as soon as possible.

I guess I would create an engine in flash (wouldnt be too much trouble for a prof programmer) and let your offspring be able to create items and maps and such. Maybe with a little coding. You have to know that even that is so much more than what I learned when I was 14 year olds on school. If I would then go back 6 years I would probably be learning how to use a computer with a program that is so stupid and dumb (made that way for kids) with all kinds of stupid and childless cartoons explaining me that if you push the cross in the right top of your screen the program would end or something.

O god I hated those things :m:

And how is he at typing, and just using the computer and stuff?

[yy17616433]

Thank you very much for your help!

[Mr beef]

I've been learnign to code properly for about 1 and a half months. Im 16 and, what I at least like to believe, a good fast learner. At such a young age I'm sure it will be very hard to have him code a game that he will enjoy without getting bored typing so much and trying to work out problems.

I didnt have a clue what I was doing, I just accepted it worked and used it, but you would need to try and teach him why it works and what it means, which I doubt is easy for him to grasp yet.

Although I think it will be hard and challanging I would say go for the 30 day trial incase writing code is too boring, even more if typing speed is slow. That way if he has given up you wont be wasting your money.

My adivce is get the trial and then just get him to do some fun animations to get his attention, then show him how to turn such fun creations into a game. Maybe a maze where you need to find the key in a time limit, then after that maybe a Mario styled game with basic AI and a few items to increase score. Just keep it basic and increase it slowly. Otherwise you'll have to wait for him to understand things better.

Goodluck I never found learning a language easy but AS is good for me because its more visual and I'm a bit of an artist :D.

Goodluck,
Mr_Beef

[Charleh]

Get him started with the animation tools first, then move onto the programming. I think the learning curve diving right into programming at a young age is steep! He can start the programming when he's ready to do more. I'd speak to him about it 1st - are you sure he wants to program? There's a lot of money in programming, and there's also no money in programming! My Dad was always pushing music stuff on me and I ended up working in computers for a living (though I now have myself a guitar, an amp and a lot of heavy distortion!)

[Jerryscript]

The Flash IDE is a bit expensive and complex for someone who may not stick with it IMHO. However, you can use several other methods to create SWF files, many of which are free. I've been using PHP/Ming (http://ming.sourceforge.net) for years, as well as MTASC, and just recently started with AS3 using MXMLC from the Flex2SDK. All of these are free, and allow you to write and compile actionscript without having to learn the complex Flash IDE.

At such a young age, you should probably start him off with AS2 with no classes. ActionScript 2 uses naming conventions and syntax that makes it very close to a spoken language. When you feel he is ready, you can then introduce the concepts of OOP, classes, and structured coding.

A very simple type of game that even the youngest of programmers could create and enjoy, and at the same time would introduce them to most of the basics of programming and game creation would be something like this I made for my godson when he was 4: http://jerryscript.hostrocket.com/portfolio/shoot/

If you do start with a game such as above, I would suggest you take it through steps such as these:

1- Hello World -- everyone does it, and it's the most basic programming concept

2- Draw a balloon -- in flash, that can be just a line with a large stroke & short length

3- Move the balloon -- start with balloon.onEnterFrame = function(){ this._x++; } then progress to vectors

4- Move the balloon randomly -- introduces math concepts such as random

5- Draw the gun -- in flash, it's a line with a centered registration point

6- Rotate the gun -- the above example uses mouse coords which of course introduces more math, ie atan2, you may want to use arrow-keypresses and increment/decrement rotation since atan2 involves trig, a bit much for kids

7- Fire a bullet -- introduces the concepts of dynamic object creation and vectors. Also a good place to intro the concepts of arrays, object pooling, and loops.

8- Collision detection -- flash makes it easy with hitTest, you probably should stick with this until you think he's ready for math based collision detection

9- Score keeping -- this will help him to learn about variables and displaying dynamic data

10- Start button -- introduces the concept of programming menus

Taken one step at a time, with a student that is already interested enough to be creating games on paper, I think these steps will provide a good basic understanding of how to get stuff on the screen. With a father that knows programming, you can then begin to add structuring via prototypes first, then when you feel he is ready, move up to classes and OOP.

Can't wait to see what he makes!

[venton]

Great tips here thanks folks.
It's got me thinking about the age issue.
I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but it appears as if todays youngsters (at least the ones I've been around) have got an instinctive ability to use computers.
They appear to know how to use the mouse, drag things, right click for menus, open windows, save files, navigate file trees etc.etc. all without any kind of instruction. And when they come across something new, eg a new piece of software they often instinctively work out how to do it.
I find this amazing as occassionally I have tried to help an older (50+) non computer person to use a computer. It is a real struggle to get them to understand the mouse, clicking, double clicking (no, try again.. a bit faster..) and as to menus etc they seem to find it a major undertaking.
The other day my son had his cousins round with their Nintendo Ds's. The youngest was just 5. They decided to try and join up together to play Mario carts. This involved some of them downloading the software wirelessly, creating a group etc.. I was amazed to see them all just work it out themselves and were playing in a couple of minutes.

The question is whether this instinct could possibly be there for concepts which we all struggled with, variables, objects, pixels etc. I can't really believe it would be, but perhaps with some assistance the concepts might be absorbed pretty fast. The ideas of 'hello world', followed by a gradual progression from there was exactly what I had in mind.
As a web programmer (asp.net in my case), I probably need to give myself a kick up the butt and get into Flash myself so I'll give it a go. I'll be in touch soon!

[hatu]

I used to make text adventures in QBASIC as a kid(8-10 or something) but only got to more extensive game programming maybe 4-5 years after that.

Maybe you should show him some of those game making programs. I used Klik n' Play and The Games Factory and they're ok for making your first games.
Easier than Flash as they're mostly drag n drop but definitely useful.
I don't think learning how to program game engines as a 8 year old is very interesting really.

Try to get his friend(s) into it too. It's a lot more fun when you're not just doing it alone.

[oldmanwinter]

As somebody who's gotten into programming through video games, I would suggest taking a "top-down" approach rather then starting him off from scratch with variables and code. What I mean is, take a game that already exists(or create one yourself), and teach him how to tweak it. My dad was into programming and he never even tried to teach it to me when I was a kid because I would have thought it was boring as hell, but I loved video games and whenever there was a game that let you create your own levels or alter the gameplay I would spend hours messing around with it (like Command&Conquer, I spent an entire summer when I was 14 messing around with that game). I'm a 25 year old engineering student today who taught game development at a summer camp and makes games in his spare time(my favorite part is the coding), and I've only developed the programming ability to code a game like pong or snake from scratch in the last 3 or 4 years, not because I was too stupid to do it when I was 8 or 13 or 17, but because I would have though it was boring back then. At that age, you don't have the patience to create the type of game you'd WANT to play from scratch (I've put about 4 months into the game I'm working on so far and I'm probably only halfway through); and anything you could create (pong, snake, space invaders, etc) wouldn't be much fun to play, let alone tweak.

Have you ever played Warcraft III? It's one of the games we would let kids modify at the camp I taught at. I don't know if it's the kind of game your son likes or not: rather then moving a character around with buttons, you control multiple characters at once by selecting them and then clicking where you want them to go (or who you want them to attack), and each character has different spells and abilities (it's one of those swords and magic type of games). If it's the kind of game your son would be into, then it is an excellent place to start in my opinion. it comes with a level editor which lets you do anything from creating custom levels and putting the games characters in that level, to programming your own game from scratch. I bought it about a year after it came out(2002 i think) and started messing around with the level editor, creating my own levels, then my own characters, and then my own scripts to control different aspects of gameplay. Before long, I was pretty much coding games from scratch with it, writing scripts which made it so i could control one character with the keyboard, and made his interactions with the environment somewhat physically accurate. If your son is like me he'd probably get a big kick out of playing around with level editor for this game, and you could probably find it in your local computer game store or on ebay for 20-30 bucks (make sure it's a bundle box with both the Warcraft III game and the "Frozen Throne" expansion, the expansion gives you the good version of the editor).

You'd obviously have to figure out how to modify the game with the editor on your own before you show him, but the company that makes it, Blizzard, made it pretty user friendly, and there are a lot of online tutorials which show you how to do it, so you should pick it up pretty fast. If i were you, I'd show your son the basics of the editor (how to place characters and alter terrain on the map) and then stand back and watch him play with it. At the camp I taught at, we usually showed the kids the basics and then gave them a day or two to go nuts before we'd start telling them how to do more advanced things. Personally, I didn't even give the kids "lessons" after the first day of instruction, I would just watch them as they worked on their projects and let them have fun with it, and would offer to tell them how to do something more advanced when it seemed appropriate. Sometimes they'd say "really?! awesome, how?" and sometimes they wouldn't care and would go on with what they were doing, although sometimes they would end up asking me how to do it later. I'm kind of getting off on a tangent here... so to answer your question, I would say that the best way to get a kid that age really interested in programming/game-design would be to get him an existing game which he can tweak. It's how I learned how to program, I started off tweaking games and gradually learned more and more about how they worked until I struck the pure programming aspect of game design. If warcraft III isn't his cup of tea, there are a lot of other games out there which come with editors which let you tweak or "mod" the game, though i can't think of any off the top of my head which aren't bloody violent first-person-shooters... it shouldn't be too hard to find one that he'll like though. Whatever you do, good luck, it sounds like you guys are going to have a lot of fun with this :)

EDIT: jesus, after rereading my post, I realized it looks like a huge sales pitch. Just to clear the air, I'm not trying to talk anyone into buying warcraft III, it's just the game I used most when doing game modding, and the only one which isn't a first person shooter (like Half-Life2 or Unreal Tournament). Also, make sure you keep your son away from World of Warcraft, it's the game Blizzard made after warcraft III and it's one of those MMORPGs that people get addicted to and waste days upon days of their lives playing (myself included).

[ArmoredSandwich]

I was 16 when I started to build games like snake and pong from scratch. I didnt thought it was boring it all. Even when I was 11 I loved it, but was unable to (read my previous post).

I do agree with you that level editors are ****ing awesome. I ****ed up many of my days with the aoe2:tc level editor. I never tried the wc3 one because I dont like wc3 and because I have better things to do now, but Ive heard that it is actually quite hard to program a game when ur used to real programming. That the game would freeze, end up in internal loops etc, when you made the slightest mistake. Could be wrong tho, its only what ive heard a couple of years back.

[Templarian]

To sum up old man winter. The first time I even tried logical code was making maps for Starcraft and later Warcraft 3. They take a very easy approach, but still require the same easy to understand logic. I was 10(or 9) though when I did that I knew the entire thing up and down, so def something he could do, and you can see instant results which is really fun.

Unless your sons a genius I would wait till hes 12 and hes has the mathematical skills to do a real language (and teach him C# and XNA later on).

(FlashDevelop is a very nice IDE for flash and has best intelesense for the AS2 and AS3. http://www.assaultwars.com/old/?p=t_as3_fd)

[oldmanwinter]

I was 16 when I started to build games like snake and pong from scratch. I didnt thought it was boring it all. Even when I was 11 I loved it, but was unable to (read my previous post).

I do agree with you that level editors are ****ing awesome. I ****ed up many of my days with the aoe2:tc level editor. I never tried the wc3 one because I dont like wc3 and because I have better things to do now, but Ive heard that it is actually quite hard to program a game when ur used to real programming. That the game would freeze, end up in internal loops etc, when you made the slightest mistake. Could be wrong tho, its only what ive heard a couple of years back.

i guess you're more mature at 16 then i was, i didn't really have the patience for programming back then. and what you heard about the editor is somewhat true, when coding with the editor you have to watch out for leaks, which is when variables are declared by the game engine and then not deleted unless you put in the code yourself which takes care of them. it's a pain in the ***, but I wouldn't think it would give you any slowdown on a single player game unless you've got a lot of checks and loops happening(in which case you'd have to be extra anal about your coding, or the leaks could give you some slowdown after the game's been running for a while). Blizzard's coming out with Starcraft II some time this year, hopefully the level editor for that won't have the same stupid problem with leaks

[ArmoredSandwich]

i guess you're more mature at 16 then i was, i didn't really have the patience for programming back then. and what you heard about the editor is somewhat true, when coding with the editor you have to watch out for leaks, which is when variables are declared by the game engine and then not deleted unless you put in the code yourself which takes care of them. it's a pain in the ***, but I wouldn't think it would give you any slowdown on a single player game unless you've got a lot of checks and loops happening(in which case you'd have to be extra anal about your coding, or the leaks could give you some slowdown after the game's been running for a while). Blizzard's coming out with Starcraft II some time this year, hopefully the level editor for that won't have the same stupid problem with leaks

hmm the guy WAS programming his own dota xD

[hatu]

Weird, I made my first maps with Warcraft 2 editor as a kid.
I guess those games have a positive influence then

[Sirisian]

I learned to program at 13, but it was because I had wanted to since I first used a computer.

I believe it's possible, I mean like my brother (templarian) said already Starcraft and Warcraft 3 map editors have an awesome system of logic gates in them that make using them very awesome. If you had him play around with that for a while it would help him to understand the logic behind programs. (Like unit X enters regions Y do Z and such. Simple conditionals).

[daboogieman]

I posted a link to istopmotion in another thread... someone was asking about teaching flash to teens. My 8yr old daughter has been playing with this and loves it. It makes it super-simple to create stop motion animations with a webcam. Basic animation concepts are learned through the process. Check it out...
http://www.boinx.com/istopmotion/overview/

[glosrfc]

You could always start him off with something like Game Maker (http://www.gamemaker.nl/old.html). No need for any programming techniques but, as you say, he'll instinctively know how to manipulate objects with the mouse. Game Maker will allow him to develop his flair for creating platform-style games (and sharing them with his friends) without boring him with all the programming techniques that underpin it. When he's a bit older, you can introduce those techniques to him.

There's more information about Game Maker here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Maker) as well as the official version available here (http://www.yoyogames.com/make).

I wouldn't start him off with Flash at that age.

[gregmax]

I didn't learn programming until I went to college... a couple years ago. And know its even hard to learn because of a full time and marriage (I do database and server side stuff, not much with game development). Its a good to start having your son learn something about game development at such a young age (whether that be through motion tweening, very basic character movement and collision detection, etc).. I wish I could've start at that age now looking back :/ but I didn't know what programming was as that time and I had know idea where to begin on what made computers work... I never had the internet at home until I left for college.

Again, good idea to start at an early age, but if want your son to learn about game development, I suggest you take interest as well and start learning some flash... I think that would work better than you persuading him to learn. imo

[-Z-]

I'm like Hatu, I started with Qbasic when I was like 11, maybe a little older, I made a simple text based 'linear' story rpg thing,

I also made a 'text based building' where I could go up to certain floors, go into rooms, go back, etc...

Then I made a birthday card in Qbasic... it was about then I learned other people didn't have the same appreciation for Qbasic :P lol

so I started doing html and stuff...

But I started before all that, creating game levels.... for simple games, like JETPACK!!! woohooo

[Marz]

I started programming simple games when I was ten years old. That was 15 years ago and I was on my Macintosh LCIII and loved it! I was hacking into games then and rearranging the code so that I would get more lives and such.

The next year, we got a basic PC and I got the internet. I started developing HTML websites and more and then started working with QBASIC and writing.. A lot of documentation. I hated BASIC and so strived to find a better language and found C and C++. That's where I really started programming.

After I messed around with C and C++ for a long time, I started doing PHP, DATABASING and more. I developed a simple game in Flash the first time I opened it up.

I would suggest starting off small and teaching him basic HTML and then moving onto PHP.. There is a reason for this. As you learn basic stuff like HTML and PHP which is highly simplistic in nature to developing games, it'll teach him the fundamentals of what variables are and do it in a creative way.

[venton]

Wow folks thanks again for the input.
You know, It looks like I'm going to have to wait a few days before I can even talk to him about it!
The little swine is glued to the Playstation games he got for Christmas. (Actually I must confess I am hooked on Call of Duty 4 - damn that is a good game.)
I am thinking that the level editor / games creator package may be the way to start him off rather than 'hello world'. This is due to his young age and probable shorter attention span kids seem to have. When I used to write games it was very much 2D stuff and not much maths involved. But I see where you are coming from now talking about maths - I hadn't even thought of that, but for 3D it must be very different.
I personally can't think of a better job than being a games writer - wish I had kept at it. This is really why I want to see if I can get him interested - what a cool way to make a living.

[DDD]

I didnt read all the posts, but I am in a similar situation. ANd what I have found to be most rewarding and a good ice breaker. Was to introduce my son into computer graphics first. I bought him a wacom, Painter X and Photoshop. I am now introducing him into animation. Then later I hope he feels the need to control his animation with scripting. I wouldnt drop him right into programming, better yet. Appeal to his creative side then let him know that there is a better way to control that creative side with programming. If he likes to draw, really focus on that don't kill the creativity with programmatic thought processes. You can teach programming, but I find near impossible to teach creativity.

[Jerryscript]

Since you have a PS3, you might want to grab Unreal Tournament 3. There is a free level editor you can get from the unreal engine website, this will allow him to create his own levels first, giving him a basic understanding of spatial geometry without having to learn the complex math. It also allows for creating mods and mutators using unreal script, so if he is still interested after playing with level editing, you can move him on to basic scripting. All of this is created on the PC, then loaded to the PS3, and it can be shared with his friends, a key to keeping interest.

[oldmanwinter]

Since you have a PS3, you might want to grab Unreal Tournament 3. There is a free level editor you can get from the unreal engine website, this will allow him to create his own levels first, giving him a basic understanding of spatial geometry without having to learn the complex math. It also allows for creating mods and mutators using unreal script, so if he is still interested after playing with level editing, you can move him on to basic scripting. All of this is created on the PC, then loaded to the PS3, and it can be shared with his friends, a key to keeping interest.
you can edit levels for the PS3 version? wow cool, do you do the editing with the console using a controller, or are you able to download the software to your PC, make levels with the PC, and then load them to play on the PS3?

[Jerryscript]

You download software to your PC, create the mods, then transfer them to your PS3. Here's the link where you can download the software:

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/PS3Mods.html#Overview

[oldmanwinter]

oh that's awesome. is it just level editing or are you able to mod it easily?

[parkerdc]

I've got an 8 yr old son who loves playing computer games and designing games on paper.

One place you can check out is http://www.learnflash.com/, they have great flash video tutorials that can be run on your computer. They have a lot of samples that can downloaded for free.

BTW: I don't work for learnflash.com

[dawoodman71]

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/beginner/bb308756.aspx

There are other topics here as well. This may still be a bit much for an 8 year old but I think if you go through it with him it will be a great learning experience.

Dawoodman71

[VanguardP]

If you want to teach him flash, start out with the basics of animation, as an 8 year old I would not have the patience even for simple scripting. Instead, Teach him keyframing.. which is the equivalent of making a flipbook on a computer. Turn on onion skinning, draw something press f6 and draw the next frame in the animation. Easy as that. As he gets better you can start teaching him how to write simple games.

[rrh]

When I was around that age, my dad made a very basic game in Basic where you moved a dot through a maze and if you hit a wall you were sent back to the start, and then let me play around with modifying it. I wouldn't have been able to make a game like that from scratch when I was so young, but I found out a few little things like changing colours or switching the controls around so the dot moved the opposite direction that you pushed.

[ShadowViper]

I would recommend downloading Gamemaker (yoyogames.com is the site). I got started using it. You can make full games just by draging and dropping, but as you advance you can use the programs coding language as much or as little as you want. After he has used that for awhile, then gt him into Flash (which will be much easier to get into after gamemaker).

~Cody

[cooldude88]

I do like the idea you got but 8 might be a bit young depending on his personality i started into programming at 15 with programming on turbo pascal not very good for an 8 year old since anything other than data tables and equations are alot of work but with flash if you slowly intro him to it and bit by bit try to make each little info fun and how he can use it he may just get into it properly. Just make sure that you dont push it to hard or he might end up resenting programming entirely :D

[tkmk]

Take it from me man,
I am only eleven, it took me months to figure out SIMPLE animation, after I got the hang off that, I played with actionscript for a while before looking about for tutorials. It should be simpler with somebody guiding the programmer.

[ArmoredSandwich]

Take it from me man,
I am only eleven, it took me months to figure out SIMPLE animation, after I got the hang off that, I played with actionscript for a while before looking about for tutorials. It should be simpler with somebody guiding the programmer.

It IS simpler with somebody guiding the programmer ;)

[DanDaMan]

It IS simpler with somebody guiding the programmer ;)

Yeah, a helper can really go a long way.

I think it's great for him to start programming at such a young age. But don't rush into it. If you force him to learn at such a young age, eventually he will grow tired of it. I started programming at the age of 11, when I got my first computer. Now that I'm 14, I have experience in HTML, CSS, C, C++, Visual Basic, and now I'm learning Actionscript and Java. And believe me, I really appreciate the early start that I got.

And trust me, the first time your child gets a sponsorship, it will just drive him to be better.

Also, I would suggest getting him into hacking. Nothing bad or anything, just like tampering with a calculator to get it to run games or messing around with games and stuff. That's how I first got into programming. My dad's friend once put an entire Windows operating system on his GameBoy Advance. I thought it was the coolest thing!

One more thing, he must understand the concept of programming. Have him look at some real-world events and determine how he would implement them in a game. For example, if he saw someone walking down the stairs, he would figure out the speed, whether it is constant or not, the random percent chance that the person would trip, etc. Also, like some other people said, it is essential that he has the concept of a variable. Programming was almost impossible for me until I realized how variables work. From then on, it was a breeze.

Good Luck with your child! =D