Your kids can build a video game this afternoon.

How this started

Last weekend I sat our boys (10 and 8) down with an AI coding tool and a short message I'd written. Then I got out of the way.

An hour later Elliot had a 3-D space shooter with a boss battle. Lucas had a rocket that lands on planets and fights the aliens who live there, plus a portal to a second universe. Neither of them had ever written a line of code.

They didn't write any this time either. They said what they wanted, the AI built it, they played it, and they asked for the next thing. Over and over. Somewhere in there they started saying things like "collision detection" and "that's a bug, not my fault."

Here's the honest part. This was easy for me because I've built software for a living for a long time, so I knew what to say to get them going. That's the piece most parents don't have. So we wrote it down.

Ben Cook (and Renee, who made me write it down)

What's in the guide

• The exact message to paste into Claude. It turns Claude into a patient game-building partner for a kid: simple words, a playable game in the first minute, and no fuss over half-typed messages. We tested that part.
• Six setup steps, written for someone who has never opened a coding tool.
• 15 coding ideas, taught one at a time inside your kid's own game. Variables, the game loop, gravity, bugs. Here's the list.
• What to do when it breaks. It will. That's part of the lesson.

What you'll need

• A computer with a keyboard. Chromebook, Mac, or Windows. Tablets don't work well, because the games use arrow keys.
• A Claude Pro account ($20/month, cancel anytime). The free plan works for a taste, but it runs out of messages fast and can't share games. Claude accounts are for adults, so kids use yours, with you nearby.
• One kid with an idea, and about 30 minutes to get going.

Get the guide