My brother is celebrating his 14th bday soon. He loves computers and games. but what 14 yo isn't? ?

Question

I was wondering if there was a book, game, etc. that would teach him in clear terms he could understand....how to create his own games on the computer. IF there is, where can I find it? Every search I've done has only resulted in topics as to whether games make kids smarter or if it only degrades our society more.

Answer 1

The only way to make games and stuff is by learning a programming language. I've seen a couple of books on learning programming languages around.

Here's an example i found just now: http://www.amazon.com/Learn-Making-Games...

If you want to pick a different one then look up another language, and google 'learn *programming language* book' or something like that.

To be honest though, learning things like this is HARD and takes a LONG time, and i'd only get him it if you're sure he's definitely into developer sort of things.

Anyway, i'm a 14 year old computer gaming obsessed boy too, and i'd much prefer a game or something rather than a book for my birthday :P

Answer 2

If you think he'd be interested in programming games, there is a book called "Game Programming for Teens" (Amazon link below).  I haven't seen it, but it gets good reviews.  There is also "3D Game Programming for Teens".

Note, however, that writing a "good" takes a lot of time and effort.  I can't help you decide if he'd be happy with the relatively simple games he could write using the techniques in these books.  I do know that my 11-year-old son had a lot of fun with the kids version of the books.

- kb -