Making video games can open a door to life-long creativity and learning.

If your child loves games and is showing interest in making one, why not help them get started? Learning how to modify existing games, or even make new ones, is a great way for kids to learn fun and useful skills like art, programming, and design.

It’s never too early to start nurturing your child’s talent and curiosity, so let’s look at some of the best online tools and resources for getting started. Then we’ll discuss some tips for helping them along successfully.

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Need help coming up with an idea for your next project, portfolio piece, or game jam? Check out our Game Idea Generator. It’s a fun and easy-to-use tool to help you brainstorm your next big game concept.

With over 50 million unique combinations, you’ll definitely find inspiration for your next project. It combines various genres, settings, and themes — and then throws in a surprising twist, just to challenge your creativity with an outside-the-box constraint.

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Writing a game design document is often the first step to bringing your video game to life.

If you’re an aspiring game designer, you’ve probably heard about the importance of a Game Design Document (GDD). A GDD is like a blueprint for your game. It oulines everything from the story to the game mechanics, and can even include your thoughts about art style, game economy, and more.

In this article, we’ll dive into why a GDD is essential, who writes it and who reads it, the key sections in a GDD, and the steps you can take to get started writing the GDD for your game.

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Dig Dug didn't make the list, but it's one of my personal favorites! (GDC 2011)

If you want to make video games for a living, it’s incredibly helpful to learn a bit of video game history. Which games made the biggest impact on the world, and why? Which iconic games changed the course of video game design forever?

Playing historically important games is not just for fun. It will also make you a better game developer. It will help you understand the evolution of games as an art form, and experience the kinds of features and mechanics that history’s best designers used to create engaging and successful games.

In other words, by studying the games that shaped the industry, you can learn from the successes (and mistakes!) of the past. Then you can bring that knowledge to the table when you’re designing of your own games.

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Like any massive industry, the game industry has more than its share of acronyms, abbreviations, and jargon. Industry jargon helps people on the inside communicate more easily, but makes it hard for outsiders or newbies to understand what’s going on. How can you search for the information you need, if you don’t even know which terms to use?

If you’re new to the game industry, the glossary below will get you up to speed fast. It avoids “power user” jargon, instead focusing on the key terms you’ll need during your job search, or your first year on the job.

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What is visual scripting?

When making video games, sometimes it’s not desirable or practical to create everything using a programming language. That’s where visual scripting comes in. Visual scripting can be used to create in-game events and control game objects, but without writing any code. So instead of typing code in a language like C++ or C#, visual scripting lets you use an easy to use, drag-and-drop interface.

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Computer programming, also known as “coding,” is one of the most in-demand jobs in the world. It’s also among the highest paid, because there’s an ongoing global shortage of people who know how to code.

And with the tech industry booming with no end in sight, tech companies that make products like software, websites, robots, and video games will continue to grow and demand talented coders for years to come.Read more »

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An artist building an online portfolio website
Which online portfolio site is right for you… and your budget?

Every artist needs an online art portfolio. Whether you’re applying to art schools or applying for a job, your artist portfolio site is your key to success.

But what if you don’t know how to build a website from scratch? Fortunately, it’s no longer 1995 — you don’t need to learn code to build a website. Instead, use one of the artist portfolio sites we’ve analyzed in this article. Each one lets you to build an online portfolio using pre-made templates, and then customize the look and layout using simple drag and drop.

But here’s the catch: There are currently seventeen (seventeen!) popular artist portfolio sites to choose from. They’re all pretty good, but they all offer a different mix of features and pricing, so it’s hard to compare them. Which one is the best for you? Read more »

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Home page of a finished art portfolio site
Start basic and personalize until it’s uniquely you

If you’re an aspiring video game designer or artist, you need to have a gorgeous online portfolio.

Why? Because when game directors open your job application, the first thing they look at is your portfolio. If they aren’t immediately impressed, their next move is to hit DELETE — and send your job application to the trash.

Fortunately, you can easily build your own portfolio website — with your own personalized URL — in under 15 minutes. (If you consider yourself “technology challenged,” give yourself 30 minutes.) Here’s how. Read more »

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Profile photo of Marek Makosiej, game translator localizer
Marek Makosiej is expert at translating words into profits.

Marek Makosiej is a professional technical translator and localizer for games and other software. His guest post below is aimed to help aspiring game localizers understand a bit about the industry, without getting lost in translation. If you think a job doing game localization might be for you, then don’t miss this! Read more »

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