Making your own game can mean a lot of different things.
It could involve a hand-drawn deck of cards, an elaborate fantasy world, a board covered in twists and traps, a game invented in the backyard or something built on a screen.
And the kind of game a child wants to make can depend on what they enjoy in the first place.
A child who loves drawing characters might approach game-making very differently from one who loves numbers and strategy. A storyteller might start with a world and its characters. Someone who loves making things might be far more interested in constructing a board and pieces.
Here are six possibilities.
1. Make a card game
A few pieces of paper or card are enough to get started with a card game.
The game could involve collecting sets, matching, battling, trading, bluffing, answering challenges or combining cards in particular ways.
And the cards themselves can grow from almost any interest.
A learner interested in animals could create species with different characteristics. Someone who loves mythology could build a deck of gods, creatures and magical objects. A football fan might create player cards with different statistics. Someone who spends their time inventing original characters could finally give those characters something to do.
There are plenty of decisions hiding inside a deck of cards.
How many cards does the game need?
Does every card have the same value?
Are some cards rare?
Can one card cancel out another?
Does the player choose which card to use or depend on whatever they happen to draw?
How does someone win, if winning is even the goal?
A learner can start with a very rough set of handwritten cards and see what happens when someone actually tries to play.
2. Build a board game
For kids who like maps, drawing, making or creating little worlds, a board game can offer a lot to work with.
The board might be a path towards a destination, but it doesn't have to be.
It could be a city where players move between locations. An island to explore. A fantasy kingdom divided into territories. A wildlife reserve where players have to solve problems. A haunted house where nobody quite knows what is waiting in the next room.
Players could race, collect, trade, build, escape, solve problems or work together towards a shared goal.
Then there's the question of how everything actually works.
Do players roll dice to move?
Can they choose where to go?
Are there shortcuts?
What happens when someone reaches a particular space?
Are there resources to collect or spend?
Could different players have different abilities?
The physical game can be as simple or elaborate as the learner wants. A first version might be scribbled onto paper with coins standing in for playing pieces. Another child might spend hours creating artwork, pieces and cards.
3. Create a tabletop or roleplaying game
Some kids are much more interested in characters and stories than boards and scores.
A tabletop or roleplaying game can start with a world and a problem.
A group of explorers arrives on a planet where something has gone very wrong.
A magical creature disappears from a village every full moon.
A group of survivors needs to cross dangerous territory.
Everyone at a party has a secret.
The game can grow from there.
Players might create characters with different abilities. Dice could determine whether risky actions succeed. There might be maps, inventories, battles, puzzles or mysteries.
Or the rules might stay very simple, leaving most of the focus on storytelling and making choices.
For a learner who already creates original characters, imaginary worlds or complicated lore, this can be an interesting shift. They don't necessarily need to invent a new world for their game, they might already have one.
4. Invent a physical game
Not every game needs cards, pieces or a screen.
A physical game can begin with running, throwing, hiding, balancing, chasing, aiming or moving through a space.
It could be completely new, or it could begin with a familiar game and one strange idea.
What if tag had moving safe zones?
What if players had different powers?
What if nobody could be eliminated?
What if two teams were secretly trying to achieve different things?
What if everybody had to work together against a timer?
Once people start playing, new questions appear quickly.
Is everyone actually involved?
Is one strategy making it too easy?
Are the rules understandable?
Does someone spend most of the game waiting?
Does it still work with three players instead of ten?
Physical games can be particularly interesting because ideas have to survive contact with real players, real spaces and all the unexpected things people do once a game begins.
5. Create an interactive story
A story can become a game as soon as the person experiencing it gets to make meaningful choices.
You find a locked door.
Do you search for the key, try another route or attempt to break it open?
Someone offers your character information, but only if you give them something in return.
Do you agree?
And what happens because of that choice later?
An interactive story could be created with paper, cards or linked slides. It might have a few simple choices or develop into an enormous web of different paths and endings.
There could be puzzles, objects to collect, character statistics or consequences that don't become apparent until much later.
This can be a particularly good direction for learners who love writing, drawing, creating characters or world-building but aren't especially interested in traditional competitive games.
The challenge isn't necessarily about beating another player. It might be about making choices and discovering where they lead.
6. Design a digital game
And, of course, a learner might want to make something digital.
That doesn't have to mean starting with a huge, technically complicated project.
A simple digital game might involve navigating a maze, collecting objects, answering challenges, interacting with characters or making choices that lead to different outcomes.
Some learners might use beginner-friendly game-making tools. Others might become interested in programming and want to learn how to build particular mechanics themselves.
But the technology is only one part of making the game. They'll still need to decide what the player can do, what the goal is, how challenges work, what happens when something goes wrong and what makes the experience interesting enough to continue.
For some kids, figuring out how to make those ideas work digitally might become the most interesting part of the whole project.
For others, one of the first five options might be much more appealing.
What kind of game would you make?
These six ideas can overlap.
A board game can have cards.
A roleplaying game can involve an enormous map.
An interactive story can be digital.
A physical game can include characters and a storyline.
A learner might begin by making a card game and gradually realise that what they really want to create is something completely different.
The first idea doesn't need to be the final one and neither does the first version of the game.
Once someone else tries to play it, all sorts of things can become apparent. A rule that seemed obvious might be completely confusing. A game expected to last half an hour might be over in five minutes. One card might be so powerful that nothing else matters.
That can all be useful information about what to try next. Change something. Play again. See what happens.
Different games make room for different interests
One of the things that makes game design such an interesting project is that there are so many ways into it.
A learner might spend most of their time drawing. Another might become absorbed in probability and scoring. Someone else might write pages of character backstory or spend days constructing a physical game board.
There could be storytelling, strategy, maths, visual art, making, technology, research or writing.
But a game-making project doesn't need to contain all of those things to count as rich learning. It can follow the parts that actually capture the learner's interest.
Explore game-making with Game Makers
Game Makers is a nuro co homeschool project for learners who want to explore games and create something of their own.
Learners can draw on the kinds of games and interests they already enjoy as they develop their ideas, experiment with how their game works, create a playable version and see what happens when other people try it.
There's no single finished product everyone is working towards.
A deck of cards, a handmade board game, an interactive adventure, a physical game or a digital creation can all take the project somewhere different.
What kind of game would you like to make?
