Jason Bender

If you’re interested in programming or you know a teen or pre-teen who wants to learn programming, I think that Game Builder Garage may be one of the best "Intro to Programming" tools ever made. This is not one of those "mad libs" style 'programming' games like RPG Maker, this is a legitimate albeit simple game engine, and you will learn every aspect of programming your games from level design to I/O calculations and everything in-between. It may sound complicated but Game Builder Garage makes everything so simple and easy to understand. Game Builder Garage is not made for very young children, you need to have a firm grasp on basic mathematics and some simple algebraic concepts. The tutorials are engaging and very educational, and the Game Builder Garage engine is a surprisingly powerful environment for learning to code just about any type of game you could imagine. You could make a first person shooter in Game Builder Garage; there isn’t a tutorial for it but if you complete all of the included tutorials then the game will give you the knowledge that you need to pull it off, and Nintendo provided all of the tools that you would need to do it. Seriously, I went into this game fully expecting it to be geared towards young children and was blown away by how complex it actually is once you get to the second and third tutorials and then beyond. I would recommend it for kids 7+ and any adult that wants a solid foundational course to learn programming concepts in a fun way.