I don't care what I spend on the kids if it's got potential.
I'm sure my dad shared your attitude
- he stuck me on piano; not my strongest skill and with rigidly enforced lessons, I got nowhere.
Turns out I can play violin tolerably, but you can't teach an old dog new tricks
- I had asked about violin when I was about 10, due to my cousin's interest and skill.
FWIW, Tom expressed an interest in cello, so I got one for him, and he stopped after two years.
But the core skills he learned will still be there.
I didn't try writing games, I wrote database applications and contact/time managers
- my favourite language is COBOL, so.
.
.
well, I'm an old fart.
Which explains why I always got
"Systems Analyst" on the aptitude tests.
the cost of XNA is
$99, plus a PC and Visual C#/Studio Express
(free, no?).
It's not so bad, though there are a few quids worth of books there too.
And no, I'm not expecting him to get as far as Hello World.
I want to present the information and let him figure out what he wants to do with it and simply not feel constrained by a lack of tools.
Tom, sounds like you're thinking in much the same way
- and yeah, I really don't think he'll write
"a game", though I would hope that a simple breakout style thing would be feasible.
Remember AMOS/STOS? Didn't the Sony NetYaroze have a similar environment? I must admit I was hoping that XNA would
- with concessions to modern techniques
- be a bit like STOS-with-balls rather than C# and then some more stuff.
Visual Basic, but with gaming libraries and a bit of hand-holding so you can get a player, a pattern and a target going, for example.
(I hated trying to use Visual Basic tutorials
- I wanted to write the application, but the tutorials were all about
"drawing" the application, making buttons, and then saying what the buttons do.
This approach seems backwards to me, or perhaps
"divisive"
- I'd already have planned the buttons in my flowchart, but they'd be the last bit to go in).
Azz, nice idea
- I know a lot of stuff uses that engine.
Are there good books/accessible documentation for the editor? He's got a laptop already, which is certainly
"of the era" that my Mac version of UT is, but I think it's a bit low end.
