The best free tools for kids who want to make video games

If your child loves video games, there’s a good chance they’ve asked how to make one. The good news: there are excellent free tools for every age, and none of them require you to know how to code.

Here’s what we’d suggest, roughly by age.

Ages 5 to 7: ScratchJr

ScratchJr is a free tablet app where kids snap together picture blocks to make characters move, jump, talk and react. No reading is required.

It’s perfect for interactive stories and very simple games. Expect your child to spend their first session making a cat walk across the screen and laughing about it. That’s a great start.

Ages 8 to 12: Scratch

Scratch is the standard first game-making tool, and for good reason. It runs in a web browser, it’s free, and it uses colourful blocks instead of typed code. Kids can build platformers, quizzes, clickers and animations.

The secret weapon is the community. Every shared project can be opened and remixed: kids see how someone else’s game works, change it and make it their own. That’s exactly how professional developers learn too.

Getting started tip: pick a simple game your child likes, such as “catch the falling apples”, and rebuild it together. Then add one new idea.

Ages 10+: GDevelop

GDevelop is a free, no-code engine for “real” 2D games. Instead of blocks it uses events, written as plain sentences: when the player touches a coin, add 1 to the score and delete the coin.

Games can be exported to the web and phones, which is very motivating: kids can send their game to friends.

Ages 13+: Godot

Godot is a free, open-source engine used by professional indie studios. It uses its own easy-to-read programming language, GDScript, which is similar to Python.

It’s a big step up, but a teen who has outgrown Scratch and wants to make “real” games will find tons of free tutorials. Everything they learn transfers to professional work.

What about Minecraft, Roblox and Fortnite?

Many kids first build games inside games they already play:

• Minecraft worlds with redstone circuits and command blocks teach logic and systems thinking.
• Roblox Studio lets kids build and publish games to Roblox with the Lua programming language.
• Fortnite Creative and the more advanced Unreal Editor for Fortnite let older kids build islands that friends can play.

These are great motivators because friends can play straight away. Set up parental controls and talk about online safety first, as these platforms include chat and in-game purchases.

How to help (even if you can’t code)

• Be the player, not the expert. Play your child’s games and tell them what you enjoyed and where you got stuck.
• Start tiny. A finished small game teaches more than an abandoned big one.
• Celebrate shipping. When they finish something, have a family “launch party” where everyone plays it.

Looking for books and supplies? Our toolkit has a list.