[cracrecry]

I would say NO to my child wanting to make a 3D game. It is just too hard and boring for most 9 years old children.

A kid knows what she wants but not what the price that she will have to pay for getting it. Today they are interested in something, tomorrow something else, specially if it is hard work, like 3D. Young children have not the mental abilities to endure hard work. They should be playing and having fun.

When they grow up and have friends and are happy in a healthy enviroment then they can endure healthy hard work later.

Simplicity and immediate feedback is the most important thing for a kid. Forget Unity, Unreal or other environments that require at least a 14 year old and complex rational skills.

I volunteer teaching young children things like 3d printers, mill machines(they can not access dangerous machines until they grow up, but they can design things)... Most children are just going there so they play with their friends. 1 in ten will become an engineer.

I will just use Pico8 or Scratch to focus on the design of the game and SIMPLICITY. Teach him basic skills like writing and drawing and basic music and sound, and basic programming so they can introduce real life asserts there, in 2D..and specially game design, to design fun games prototypes.

Start doing something basic that is funny in 2D. If he does not loose interest, raise the bar. Since and repeat.

This is like if he wants to be an Orchestra director. You start teaching him the musical notes, having fun with melodies, then harmony...

Games are designed with minimal proof of concepts, that have no textures, sound recorded with the phone, with a basic dynamic of the game. You test that your basic prototype is fun. Only then you add textures and better sounds, or sophistication.

3D modelling, inverse kinematics and Mocap, painting and assigning textures in 3D, it is just so hard and little reward for a kid, with long periods of delayed gratification.

[cardanome]

Starting with 2d games is very good advice however if the child is mostly interested in 3d, well not the most helpful advice.

Some people here forget that children are way more tolerant of not understanding things than adults are. They just want to get a quick taste not necessary dedicate their life to the study of game development.

I think something like RPG in a Box https://rpginabox.com/ is nice if the child likes Minecraft-style graphics. Alternatively modding an existing games is something that might be of interest. Also blender is perfect for those that are mainly interested in the 3d graphics aspect, as it allows to focus on certain fields like modeling first and has an amazing game engine that can be solely driven by logic bricks: https://upbge.org/#/

Still, I think even something like Unreal should not be ruled out if the child is dead set on making a "real" game (9 years is a bit pushing it but with help it might work out). For a visually-motivated child that has access to beefy computer, Unreal is the perfect tool to get things done early and fast. Load the starter template and they have a character they can walk around with in the first minute. Grab some free-for-the-month asset packs and they can make decent looking levels in a day or two that they can show friends and be proud of. And if they get to the point of needing logic, the visual scripting language is more than enough to make complete games in it.

Unreal is a monster of complexity but but perfect for just hacking together a quick asset-flip demo one can feel good about. They will learn about the realities of game dev soon enough, let them have some fun.