[krumpet]

My kids are 12 and 14 and I can't get them interested in coding beyond what they might do at school. They showed an interest in Scratch, but I believe I introduced it WAY too early. Moreover, it moved them too quickly past the creative aspects and into writing code. Also, years later, I showed them PICO-8 and they weren't terribly interested.

In hindsight, I would recommend working with them at a young age (<10) to design game art and ideas. Then, the parent implements it and ports it to a portable platform. The child sees the creative aspects and the final output, but is shielded from the coding side in the early days. I imagine a child playing a game they designed on paper with crayons would be really satisfying. It would almost be like magic!

Then, let the transition to the coding side happen more organically or through a school program or some such. Maybe when they finally ask, "So, parent, how do I actually code these games?"

Just my non-data backed opinion...

[AlanYx]

That's what I've been doing with one of my kids. They're designing the sprites and maps in the PICO-8 sprite editor and I'm taking the lead on showing them how to do the rest.

They've also enjoyed tweaking the sprites of existing PICO-8 games.

[otikik]

Yep. My 7yo son is the graphics and gameplay designer, I am the implementor