#“Oscar’s First Android Game via App Inventor”
I have to say I'd dead proud of young Oscar. Seven hours ago he'd never seen a line of code. Now he has finished his first from-scratch game. He calls it "The Reaction Game" and it involves tapping buttons as fast as possible in 60 seconds.
We've had some choice quotes from him today:
- I want to build a game like all those stupid ones people play on Facebook
- It's still Beta. We'll add high scores and difficulty levels next week.
- I think this could be the next Angry Birds
- Wait a second, this means I could build a Chuck Norris Soundboard!
- Why won't it work on an iPhone?
If you want to try it out, download the APK and install on your Android phone.
Few quick thoughts.
- Google has built a great tool
- It needs more kid-attractive tutorials
- As I said in last post, web services need to be wired in to allow cool audio, video and image applications. Maybe even Twitter/Facebook APIs.
- Kids love games, work that to the max for tutorials
- But Google completely lacks coolness and mindshare. He wants to tap into Facebook. Not sure how Google fixes that.
So a kid who was building a Google Android App has this as the back of his laptop. Why? Cos Facebook is cool. (Yeah and I gave him the stickers). Do you see a Goog logo or Android logo anywhere?
Screenshot of the designer:
Screenshot of the blocks editor:
I really only had to give him a few pointers on using timers and conditional logic. He figured the rest out himself.
11 years old and he's already thinking monetization :-)