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Build it Yourself
Video Games: Design and Code Your Own Adventure
Catch a glimpse inside a school bus and you’ll see lots of kids looking down. What are they doing? They’re deciding on strategy, building cities, setting traps for monsters, sharing resources, and nurturing critical relationships.
Over 90 percent of kids ages 2–17 play video games. In Video Games: Design and Code Your Own Adventure, young readers learn why games are so compelling and what ancient games such as mancala have in common with modern games like Minecraft. Kids will even create their very own video games using software such as MIT's Scratch!
Using a familiar, high-interest subject, Video Games introduces foundation subjects such as geometry, physics, probability, and psychology in a practical framework. Building Tetris pieces out of Rice Crispie Treats and designing board games are some of the hands-on projects that engage readers’ building skills, while writing actual game code opens digital doors readers may not have known existed.
Over 90 percent of kids ages 2–17 play video games. In Video Games: Design and Code Your Own Adventure, young readers learn why games are so compelling and what ancient games such as mancala have in common with modern games like Minecraft. Kids will even create their very own video games using software such as MIT's Scratch!
Using a familiar, high-interest subject, Video Games introduces foundation subjects such as geometry, physics, probability, and psychology in a practical framework. Building Tetris pieces out of Rice Crispie Treats and designing board games are some of the hands-on projects that engage readers’ building skills, while writing actual game code opens digital doors readers may not have known existed.
128 pages, Paperback
First published September 8, 2015
4 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Kathy Ceceri
18 books15 followersKathy Ceceri is the author of STEAM books for kids and families including "Making Simple Robots," "Musical Inventions," and "Paper Inventions" from the publishers of Make magazine, and "BOTS" and "Video Games: Design and Code Your Own Adventure" from Nomad Press. Online, she was the Homeschooling Expert for Thoughtco, a founding editor of GeekMom.com, and a top writer for Wired's GeekDad blog. When she's not busy writing, Kathy presents hands-on workshops for students and educators.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 3, 2019
First book of 2019!!
This book is a great resource for kids! And beginners! My philosophy is that when you're starting out in a new subject, check out some nonfiction books that are aimed for children. If the kids are able to figure it out, you can too! The information is written in such a way that it is much easier to understand.
This book is jam-packed with ways to get kids starting to think differently about the games they're playing and how to start analyzing them from a different viewpoint - from a design viewpoint. It includes activities as well that are geared towards helping kids practice different elements of video game design. I highly recommend!
This book is a great resource for kids! And beginners! My philosophy is that when you're starting out in a new subject, check out some nonfiction books that are aimed for children. If the kids are able to figure it out, you can too! The information is written in such a way that it is much easier to understand.
This book is jam-packed with ways to get kids starting to think differently about the games they're playing and how to start analyzing them from a different viewpoint - from a design viewpoint. It includes activities as well that are geared towards helping kids practice different elements of video game design. I highly recommend!
April 17, 2016
J794.8 CEC
Published on 2015, this book on display on one of library scratch coding program. It is the book for kids, contain very simple concepts to understand video game. It contains 17 hand-on projects so that kids can be engaged in creating games. The projects are fun. It is one of Build it yourself series.
My review: it is nice to read this book for some basic concepts and information about games . Even I have read so many books about video games, it is still very hard to put all information neat together.
This book provide such guide for me. Introduction: Every is a Gamer! Chap 1: Video games and their roots. Chap 2 Why Do we play games> Chap 3: Gamemaking step by step Chap 4: Coding: How to write a game program. Chap 5: Make you game come to life. Chap 6: So, You want to make video games.
Programming language:
1. Visual Programming Language: Scratch,Tynker, Blocky
2. Game Engine:
Unity, Construct 2, Stencyl, GameMaker, Unreal
3. Board Game: Robot Turtle (Google Dan Shapiro), Code Master (Mark Engelberg)
Terms:
1. Easter eggs: hide little surprise by the game designers.
2. Game Jam: a gathering of game developers to design and create games in a short period time.
3. Console: a specialized computer used to play video games on a TV screen.
4. Achievable challenge or hard fun, a goal that is within reach, but only with effort.
5. Chemical substance related to game: dopamine (help to focus), oxytocin (make happy), serotonin (make you alert), Endorphin(relive stress).
6. Tom Chatfield define 7 ways for tap into brain reward system to keep playing game.
Experience points (XP); Short and long-term goals through level up; Rewards for effort; Feedback; Unexpected reward, a game keeps you guessing make you pay attention to what you're doing. ; Teachable movement; Multiplayer mode.
7. gamification: adding game elements to another kind of activity to make it more fun or appealing.
8. be aware of in-app purchases or microtransactions which use real money to buy something can be used on games.
9. gameplay: the way players interact with a game and the experience it provides. Game reviewers use it to rate how well they likes playing the game.
10. treatment: short, one page description of how the game works, much simpler than design document.
11. reskin: adding new graphics and other design elements to the structure underneath an existing game.
12. PC (Playable characters) vs. NPC (non-playable characters) vs. Boss
13. retro look: a style of graphic that look like an early video game, with low resolution and blocky pixel. Voxel: a short for "volume pixel", a 3-D style of pixel. Minecraf: using voxel and retro like.
14. Haptics: the use of vibration in a smartphone or game controller to make it seems as though you can fell the movement happening on the screen.
15. wireframe: a blueprint that shows the arrangement of content on the screen.
16. bitmap vs. vector image p91
bitmap: describe by pixel by pixel
vector: describe as points, lines and shapes.
https://scratch.mit.edu/help/videos/ (for detail)
Popular games
1. MMORPG ( #1, WoW world of Warcraft, Club Penguin by Disney)
RPG Civilization, Simcity
Steam: online gaming platform.
2. Tetris, inspired by a puzzle called pantomimes. The shapes in Tetris called tetriminoes, each contain 4 boxes, in 7 varieties. It is invented by Russian mathematician Alexey Pajitnov.
Game websites:
1. Games for Change
http://www.gamesforchange.org/ (Founded in 2004,facilitates the creation and distribution of social impact games that serve as critical tools in humanitarian and educational efforts.)
2. Kongregate is a browser games hosting website owned by Gamestop Corporation,[3] which allows users to upload user-created Adobe Flash, HTML 5/JavaScript, Shockwave, Java or Unity games.
3. Caine's arcade, Cardboard Challenge.
4. GGJ: Global Game Jam
Published on 2015, this book on display on one of library scratch coding program. It is the book for kids, contain very simple concepts to understand video game. It contains 17 hand-on projects so that kids can be engaged in creating games. The projects are fun. It is one of Build it yourself series.
My review: it is nice to read this book for some basic concepts and information about games . Even I have read so many books about video games, it is still very hard to put all information neat together.
This book provide such guide for me. Introduction: Every is a Gamer! Chap 1: Video games and their roots. Chap 2 Why Do we play games> Chap 3: Gamemaking step by step Chap 4: Coding: How to write a game program. Chap 5: Make you game come to life. Chap 6: So, You want to make video games.
Programming language:
1. Visual Programming Language: Scratch,Tynker, Blocky
2. Game Engine:
Unity, Construct 2, Stencyl, GameMaker, Unreal
3. Board Game: Robot Turtle (Google Dan Shapiro), Code Master (Mark Engelberg)
Terms:
1. Easter eggs: hide little surprise by the game designers.
2. Game Jam: a gathering of game developers to design and create games in a short period time.
3. Console: a specialized computer used to play video games on a TV screen.
4. Achievable challenge or hard fun, a goal that is within reach, but only with effort.
5. Chemical substance related to game: dopamine (help to focus), oxytocin (make happy), serotonin (make you alert), Endorphin(relive stress).
6. Tom Chatfield define 7 ways for tap into brain reward system to keep playing game.
Experience points (XP); Short and long-term goals through level up; Rewards for effort; Feedback; Unexpected reward, a game keeps you guessing make you pay attention to what you're doing. ; Teachable movement; Multiplayer mode.
7. gamification: adding game elements to another kind of activity to make it more fun or appealing.
8. be aware of in-app purchases or microtransactions which use real money to buy something can be used on games.
9. gameplay: the way players interact with a game and the experience it provides. Game reviewers use it to rate how well they likes playing the game.
10. treatment: short, one page description of how the game works, much simpler than design document.
11. reskin: adding new graphics and other design elements to the structure underneath an existing game.
12. PC (Playable characters) vs. NPC (non-playable characters) vs. Boss
13. retro look: a style of graphic that look like an early video game, with low resolution and blocky pixel. Voxel: a short for "volume pixel", a 3-D style of pixel. Minecraf: using voxel and retro like.
14. Haptics: the use of vibration in a smartphone or game controller to make it seems as though you can fell the movement happening on the screen.
15. wireframe: a blueprint that shows the arrangement of content on the screen.
16. bitmap vs. vector image p91
bitmap: describe by pixel by pixel
vector: describe as points, lines and shapes.
https://scratch.mit.edu/help/videos/ (for detail)
Popular games
1. MMORPG ( #1, WoW world of Warcraft, Club Penguin by Disney)
RPG Civilization, Simcity
Steam: online gaming platform.
2. Tetris, inspired by a puzzle called pantomimes. The shapes in Tetris called tetriminoes, each contain 4 boxes, in 7 varieties. It is invented by Russian mathematician Alexey Pajitnov.
Game websites:
1. Games for Change
http://www.gamesforchange.org/ (Founded in 2004,facilitates the creation and distribution of social impact games that serve as critical tools in humanitarian and educational efforts.)
2. Kongregate is a browser games hosting website owned by Gamestop Corporation,[3] which allows users to upload user-created Adobe Flash, HTML 5/JavaScript, Shockwave, Java or Unity games.
3. Caine's arcade, Cardboard Challenge.
4. GGJ: Global Game Jam
March 14, 2019
This book is about the history of games and how to make and create them. It was interesting with a good layout and taught me a lot about making videogames. its shows you code how to design different games u could make and more. overall I think this is a good book and I would recommend to anyone who is interested in making videogames but doesn't know what they are doing.
June 9, 2025
I think this is a great book for kids to start getting into game design. It was not exactly the speed or comprehension level I needed but it did teach me about various free resources to play around with when learning now to create video games from home.
April 30, 2016
The Atari cartridges of E.T were dug up in New Mexico, not Arizona. This book is simple for young kids to get the most basic concept of video games how-to. Is the information accurate? Well, that's for you to decide. Would I recommend this book? Probably not, there are better reference books out there than this one. I do give it an A for effort but I don't think Metacritic would be as kind.
May 22, 2016
Decent introductory info. 4-8.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews