Coding Kids: Let's Make Games!
- Description
- Curriculum
- FAQ
- Reviews
Course Description
This course offers a gentle and fun introduction to the world of game development, teaching basic coding and game design concepts. The goal of the course is to get kids comfortable and passionate about coding and game development. It is also a great way for creative kids to express themselves by bringing their own game ideas to life.
The Coding Kids Approach
Learning should be fun. Our kids are having too much fun to realize they are actually gaining some of the most indispensable skills for their possible future career.
At Coding Kids we turn kids’ love of playing videogames into making videogames. The journey will prepare them for potential careers in fields such as programming, game design, digital art, interactive media and so much more.
Contents and Overview
In over three and a half hours of content including 38 lectures, this course covers the foundations of programming and game design by building four different games from scratch. Completed Construct 2 project files for each tutorial can be downloaded through the course.
This course covers, amongst other things:
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Object based programming
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2d game sprites
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Behaviours
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Variables
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Events and Actions
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Game design
Students will also learn basic good programming habits such as proper object naming, frequent saving of work and pre-planning of work.
Upon completion, students will understand basic programming concepts and be able to make a variety of games entirely on their own. They will be at a much better position to take on further learning of programming and game development at school or at home.
2024 Notes: The course uses Construct 2, a game-making software, which is free and still available to download. Construct 3 requires a subscription for full access, so the course remains based on Construct 2.
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1
Put your programmer hat on!What is programming? Computers how stupid and you need to tell them exactly what you want them to do. Let's start thinking like programmers.
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2
Installing Construct 2
How to install the free version of Construct 2 on your PC.
2024: get the link here: https://www.construct.net/en/construct-2/download
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3
What To Do If The Screen Goes Weird
Sometimes the various tabs in the Construct 2 window might move around or disappear. This is how you can fix it.
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4
Before We Start
How to work with this course and what to do when you face a problem.
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5
Setting up game project
Let's create the game project and set it up properly so we are ready to add cool things to it. We will also have a quick look around Construct 2 and get familiar with it.
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6
Adding our Hero
Here's the good part. Let's add our hero and give them something to walk on.
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7
Adding a spike
Let's add our first obstacle to make things more interesting.
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8
Adding additional behaviours
Scroll to behavior tells the camera to follow an object. We also add a destroy outside of layout behavior to our player.
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9
Adding a goal
Now that we have a few obstacles we need a goal so we could beat the level.
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10
Adding moving enemies and platforms
Spikes are nice, but how about a moving enemy?
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11
Adding a key
To make the level a bit more interesting let's add a key that needs to be collected first.
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12
Designing our level
Let's reuse the sine movement behaviour to make platforms move as well.
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13
Designing additional levels
Now that we have everything, we can easily use it to make many new levels.
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14
Wrap up
Let's go over all we learnt and figure out what to do next.
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15
Setting up the game project
We'll be setting up a project for our new game, using different layout and screen size dimensions.
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16
Create our mouse controlled player
We'll create our player and make it moveable with the mouse.
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17
Add shooting mechanics for the player
Now that we can move, let's also start shooting.
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18
Create the first enemy
We'll create enemies that can be spawned randomly at the top of the screen.
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19
Adding score system
Let's get familiar with global variables by adding a scoring system.
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20
Adding a high score
Let's add a high score so we can keep track of our best attempts.
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21
Creating enemy 2 and it's spawn conditions
After killing 10 enemies, a new tougher enemy is going to start spawning.
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22
Adding a scrolling background and Wrap Up
Now we'll be adding a scrolling background to make the game look more exciting and then wrap things up.
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23
Setting up the project
We'll set up a new project for our multiplayer game.
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24
Custom platform controls
Let's re-assign the keys used to move the player by using some code.
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25
Creating the goal and winning screen
By adding a goal and winning screen, our game can now be played competitively.
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26
Adding random collectibles
Let's add coins that appear randomly around the screen for the players to collect.
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27
Counting and displaying the score for both players
Now we need to keep track on how many coins each player collected and display it.
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28
Wrap up
Let's wrap it up!
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29
Setting up the project
Setting up our new car game project.
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30
Creating the Track and Car
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31
Drawing the Track
Let's design the path the car needs to follow.
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32
Barriers
We'll be adding barriers to ensure the player must stay on the track.
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33
Tweaking the Car
Let's improve our car.
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34
Adding a timer part 1
We need a timer to know how fast we can complete the track.
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35
Adding a timer part 2
Let's display our time and add an option to retry the level.
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36
Adding a timer part 3
To finish off, let's add a best lap time recorded for the fastest performance.
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37
Wrap up
Another game wrapped up!
