My 9 year old is doing a game dev course in town where they use the BBC Micro Bit, a retro arcade peripheral (buttons, screen, sound, handheld), and some Microsoft game dev IDE. It’s incredibly compelling and feels a lot like this. But less than 1/3 the price and much more extensible and well-featured (the screen is colour!). I’m not sure I really see the value of the Playdate.
My boys (then 10 and 8) loved MakeCode Arcade. I promised that if they wrote an original game - rather than following the great tutorials - then I'd make them a physical setup with a Pi Zero and some classic arcade buttons. They were very motivated and learned a lot.
Comments
My 9 year old is doing a game dev course in town where they use the BBC Micro Bit, a retro arcade peripheral (buttons, screen, sound, handheld), and some Microsoft game dev IDE. It’s incredibly compelling and feels a lot like this. But less than 1/3 the price and much more extensible and well-featured (the screen is colour!). I’m not sure I really see the value of the Playdate.
That sounds rad. I’d love to get my kids into this. Got any links to your particular setup?
The game dev environment they’re talking about is MakeCode Arcade. I’m also a big fan of it.
There are a number of little handheld gadgets that you can use with MakeCode—scroll down on the homepage and there’s a section that shows them all:
https://arcade.makecode.com/
Yeah that’s it! I recognize the Micro Bit Arcade Shield and the Retro Arcade as what he’s been using when he shows me demos.
I LOVE that he gets to code in Scratch but can jump into Python or JavaScript at any time without the IDE changing. It’s a clear stepping stone.
My boys (then 10 and 8) loved MakeCode Arcade. I promised that if they wrote an original game - rather than following the great tutorials - then I'd make them a physical setup with a Pi Zero and some classic arcade buttons. They were very motivated and learned a lot.