Hi everyone. I am coming here for a bit of guidance. My son is 10 years old and is very logically inclined. He wants to be a programmer and make games. So far he has spent a lot of time making things on Roblox and has delved a little into the scripting there but not much. He has also made some games with RPG Maker. He downloaded the Unreal engine and went through some tutorials but he needed a bit more instruction there and I wasn't sure if that was any place to start.

So basically, If you had a child who wanted to focus on learning how to program games, what path would you suggest? I'm looking for a generalized path through this as well as specific instruction books/programs. He is homeschooled, if that influences your advice. Any map at all through this maze would be super appreciated.

Because your son is only 10 years old (that's pretty young for programming, but it's not unheard of) it's tough for me to give accurate advice, so I'll do my best.

Game programming is really only a specialized type of general programming. Programming has a lot theory involved, but at 10 that's probably a little dry and would go over his head (and is something you will learn in university anyways). When I was young and programming (I started around 14) it was a bit frustrating because I didn't want to read boring books that weren't really about games, so I really just spun my wheels for a few years (game programming tutorials didn't really exist online at the time) until I could take some high school classes in programming. In class, having a teacher to help out (even if they generally didn't know what they were doing) and having assignments I needed to do helped me learn a few things.

Seeing results of your work is very important, especially at a young age, which is why you generally learn input and output streams first, since you can quickly write code and see the effect on screen.

I think you should try giving him lessons on general programming, this way he'll learn conditional branching, looping, functions, etc. that he'll need to program in most languages. If your son can grasp these concepts pretty easily you can start expanding from there by letting him build text based games, then he can learn some 2D framework to build small 2D games like pac man, etc. If your son can handle those projects at this point then he can probably direct his own learning from this point and make his own decisions about when to delve into 3D.

At 10 years old (good) programming books are probably pretty dry, but they are good reference material. There are also lots of websites with programming information these days if he gets stuck. I've programmed professionally on games for 8 years now and I still get stuck, there is a ton of help on the internet via google. Sites like this one are also very useful when you have a more specific question to your current project/task, or just want to start a discussion on a topic.

As Shane C suggested, using an existing game engine can help by allowing your son to build games with less programming. This will help make games faster, and might be what your son is really looking for, but if he really wants to program, he should probably learn the concepts first, even if it's not too exciting. I find that it's a better way to learn the fundamentals.

As for a career path to be a game programmer, anything your son learns pre university is a bonus.

A bachelor's degree in computer science (or equivalent) is the common way to go. You will learn the basics, fundamentals, theory, and even some specialized topics in a proper CS degree.

This is obviously something for your son to decide much later on though.

I'd second Unity 3D, given it's fairly easy to learn and also used quite widely in the industry!

If that's too big a jump, I'd definitely say do as much as possible on RPG maker (that's what I was doing about a decade ago). And if you want to move that into 3D without any programming, try 3DRad (www.3drad.com). That's a great place to start because you can accomplish quite a lot without any code. When you're familiar with it's general workings, there's a 'script' object (in a C-like language) that you can use to start getting more advanced.

Thanks guys, that is super helpful. Going to check out Unity and see what some good courses are for general programming knowledge. Once again, I do appreciate it.

By the way, my son is 12, not 10. I know how old he is I promise :) Not sure how I got that typed in wrong. Anyway, just saying that in case it changes anything.

JavaScript is a nice language for starting on and it is also used in Unity, so could have immediate gameprogmming use. You and your son should check out Codecademy, it's got a nice bite size course on JavaScript that will teach you everything you need to know very quickly.