   My 10yr old son wants to write a computer game
  I am a programmer with 15 years of experience but no game development(or even computer graphics) experience.My 10yr old son would like to write a computer game with me. He would dothe game design and maybe some of the graphics and I would handle allthe programming side.I am aware that most games are multi-million dollar projects that take 1to 2 years to complete, so I have to manage his expectations. Here aresome alternatives I thought of:A) creating a simple 2D or quasi 3D game (pac-man or supermario style)B) joining an OpenSource project that''s developing a gameCan anyone suggest other alternatives?For alternative A), can anyone suggest books, web sites, toolkits thatwould help a very amateur game developer and his son to build such asimple game? Note that I haven''t written a line of C/C++ in 8 years andhope that won''t change. Nowadays, I do most of my programming in perl,Python and Java (often connecting them to C/C++ libraries so I can usetheir high-performance code from a language where I don''t have to worrryabout such menial things as memory management).For alterntive B), can anyone suggest an OpenSource project that''sbuilding a game that a 10yr old and his dad could take part in (noshoot-em-up Quake types of games of course).ThxAlain DésiletsResearch OfficerNational Research Council of CanadaBTW: I tried to access the archives of this mailing list at:http://www.tpu.org/pipermail/tpu-gamedev/but got a Not Found error.  
  First thing i want to say is that i think its cool that you want to help your son with making his game.To look for open-source projects, www.sourceforge.net and www.freshmeat.net.If you do find a suitable team, then im not sure how they''d feel about you wanting to use your son''s graphics in their game. As you have experience in Python and Java, i''d advise you look into graphics/input/sound libraries for both of these languages and write it yourself. I''ve never used it, but pyGame (a Python game library) is apparently pretty good.  ;quote:Original post by alain_desilets  Nowadays, I do most of my programming in perl,Python and Java (often connecting them to C/C++ libraries so I can usetheir high-performance code from a language where I don''t have to worrryabout such menial things as memory management).  Have a look at this lib, and visit here.;  AWESOME! Another fellow game developer. AT AGE 10 EVEN! COOL.ANYWAY, check out GAME MAKER 4.0. Type in "Game Maker" at google.com. It''s free and it is minimal coding. It is very simple to use depending on what you want to build. Plus if you want to learn how to code in C++, it has a optional scripting language you could use for bigger and better products. Hopefully that helps! Happy programming!-Taylor EMAIL: music_dreamer@hotmail.com  ;  My compliments exactly.  ;  Alain Desilets,I think it is great that your son shows interest in making computer games. I started myself when I was 11 and that has later given me a good job in the industry.Personally I would recommend buyingDARKbasic (www.darkbasic.com)for the young beginnger. It costs a little but the price is reasonable and then you get all you need to get started making games and complete a few small ones.Later when he gets more proficient he can begin to play with the more advanced/professional stuff but at the moment what he really needs is to get some immediate successes in what he does and here DARKbasic is great. Jacob Marner, M.Sc.Console Programmer, Deadline Games  ;  you could try PySDL (or something like that) at www.libsdl.org in the "Libraries" part. it''s easy.or may be you could try with some ''toolkit'' like DarkBasic, BlitzBasic, and so on...  ;  oh, i forget: ''PySDL is a Python module that provides access to the SDL library''s functionality'' (SDL is a library usually used for game programming)   ;  alain: You are using outdated thinking. You apparently think it''s necessary to use C/C++ to write a game, but it isn''t. You are free to use Java or Visual Basic or DarkBASIC. DarkBASIC has a built-in 3D engine. I''m not sure how good it is but it''s certainly adequate for a puzzle game. And there''s a 3D API for Java called Java3D.    ~CGameProgrammer( );;  I wish my dad would program 3D games with me :I would start with some simple 2D games in a language you are comfortable and then perhaps work into something 3D. You can search on google.com for the TrueVision3D engine (its free) and it interfaces well with Visual Basic. You should no problem at all getting to learn it.Have fun [edited by - neurokaotix on January 30, 2003 2:26:44 AM]