HB Game Maker Bundle Discussion - Which Programs have you used?

Change the ( ) and [ ] positions.

Also, bump.

it depends if he's interested in making 3d or 2d games. if 2d, he should probably start with RPG Maker.

Tell your brother not to bother with App Game Kit 2: Easy since that's more of an IDE then engine and if he wants to do anything with it he will have to learn how to code everything.

RPGMaker VX Ace would probably be a decent engine for him considering his age. Tell him if he wants to do cool stuff in it that he might wanna google for scripts made by other people. The default resolution for games made in RPGMaker is very low, so he'll need script that fixes that. There are also scripts to change combat system and what not. He can even create action-RPG with the right script.

I'm not really sure how well would an 8 year old understand scripts though.

I don't think he needs any other RPGMakers since VX Ace should be the easiest to use.

Axis Game Factory's AGFPRO v3 is software for creating maps in 3D. It's not really a game engine. I wouldn't bother with it, but since he's 8 he might find it fun to create stuff in it.

GameGuru I don't know much about this one. It's used to create 3D games, seems like it's mostly focused on FPS but I did see a video of RPG project that looks rather decent. Not sure would this be too hard for him to make games with, the website says you can create games without any programming knowledge but I don't know about that.

used ? Yoe are missing the point of those bundles kind sir.
its collecting purpose only.

I used RPG Maker way back when and it was fun (first had it on the PS1). Never did anything serious with it, but it can give you a grasp on how logic works with RPG games (setting progress flags and having events happen conditionally on other events taking place first). Must admit I don't have experience with any of the other programs on the list, but I used earlier incarnations of RPG maker when I wasn't too much older than your brother and it was pretty easy.

My younger brother's school offered a "game programming" course and they ended up using Clickteam's Multimedia Fusion 2 for their curriculum (was also in a Humble not too long ago). He had a lot of fun doing that, and started doing other things besides his coursework. One time I even saw him use it to make an experience calculator or something for Runescape. If he ever had any intentions to go further with learning programming, I bet I could have talked him into trying out Visual Basic by showing him how easy it is to make the same kind of calculator. That's all that I can personally recommend other than RPG Maker. It has an easy drag and drop interface and graphical logic menu to get you started, but you can delve into it beyond that and start making more ambitious projects. I Wanna Be The Guy was made in MMF.