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Ask HN: Best stack for building a tiny game with an 11-year-old?

14 points by richardstahl 2 days ago

I want to make a simple game together with the 11-year-old daughter of a friend during a weekend where they stay over.

I have a Mac and Claude Code Max and Codex, so I am equipped to create AI-slop. I’m happy to do some setup and pre-wiring. Mainly I want her to understand some basics and feel the joy of building something visual in a few hours. Based on historical experience it will have to be something with pink unicorns.

I tried Godot, but it felt like too much complexity for this use case. If we do a bit of pair programming then using Godot would take too long to iterate or explain concepts. I looked at https://github.com/Jibby-Games/Flappy-Race for instance but do not think I could make that work with her in an afternoon or two. I was also unsure how to get or manage game assets.

Would you recommend Godot, Scratch, PICO-8, JS in the browser (p5.js), or something else?

Especially interested in replies from people who’ve actually made games with kids around this age.

Comments (30)

sph 2 days ago