As a kid, i did what many nintendo bitten kids did: drew level maps.
As an adult, i've wondered what would happen if you put actual game tools in the hands of kids. Exactly that happened yesterday when i worked in the video game exhib at the museum. Two sisters in the age of 8-10 (my estimate) wondered if they could make their own game, so i fetched two laptops and set them up with shiru's nes screen tool and a NES console so they could try out several commercial games of the time. They took turns playing castlevania 1 and then started to design their own game concepts. At first i was worried they might be a little too young to have the stamina, but they sat for two hours and made up graphics and game rules before their parents decided it was time to go home. The kids wanted to have the tool used sent to them so they could continue at home.
One of them figured out how to use as few tiles as possible to spell title and name all by her self, aswell as making use of attribute table borders. The palettes were confusing at first by they adapted real quick through trial and erroring.
Just thought i would share these screens. Screen captures and descriptions (my translation) uploaded with concent from both kids and their parents:
Monster till atak (Monsters to atak - my attempt at carrying over the spelling and feel to english)
Game rules:
-Escape from monsters
-Kill monsters
-It's not minecraft because i couldn't spell it
Onska till atak: (Eveel to atak - again my attempt at translating)
Game rules:
"Three teddy bears who seek to bungle up things for the giant and the four good teddy bears. They try to steal the good ones so they will turn bad when the giant is away for a walk"
I'd play both for sure!
I'll have the laptops set up in case more kids would want to throughout the week.
Edit: requesting move to general
As an adult, i've wondered what would happen if you put actual game tools in the hands of kids. Exactly that happened yesterday when i worked in the video game exhib at the museum. Two sisters in the age of 8-10 (my estimate) wondered if they could make their own game, so i fetched two laptops and set them up with shiru's nes screen tool and a NES console so they could try out several commercial games of the time. They took turns playing castlevania 1 and then started to design their own game concepts. At first i was worried they might be a little too young to have the stamina, but they sat for two hours and made up graphics and game rules before their parents decided it was time to go home. The kids wanted to have the tool used sent to them so they could continue at home.
One of them figured out how to use as few tiles as possible to spell title and name all by her self, aswell as making use of attribute table borders. The palettes were confusing at first by they adapted real quick through trial and erroring.
Just thought i would share these screens. Screen captures and descriptions (my translation) uploaded with concent from both kids and their parents:
Monster till atak (Monsters to atak - my attempt at carrying over the spelling and feel to english)
Game rules:
-Escape from monsters
-Kill monsters
-It's not minecraft because i couldn't spell it
Onska till atak: (Eveel to atak - again my attempt at translating)
Game rules:
"Three teddy bears who seek to bungle up things for the giant and the four good teddy bears. They try to steal the good ones so they will turn bad when the giant is away for a walk"
I'd play both for sure!
I'll have the laptops set up in case more kids would want to throughout the week.
Edit: requesting move to general
