Hi, I am organizing a two week daycamp for a group of around 30 teens aged 14-17 due for this summer. In this daycamp, I plan to create a game with them, using their own models and textures. This daycamp has already been done using the Blender Game Engine.

The problem right now, is that the Blender Game Engine (and Blender, in general) is fairly hard to use. Most of the two weeks is concentrated on learning the program to make basic models and it leaves little room to actually program the game.

So I was wondering, is there an engine or program that can be used to make a 3D game (that is a requirement), that is fairly easy to use, requires no programming knowledge (or very little). The engine or program has to be free, or cost very little. Bonus points if the program has an in-game model builder.

I am looking for something that will shorten the time needed to learn the program and make it easy to make games that can also scale and be relatively easy to use by 30 teens with different backgrounds (most with no or little programming language). I don't really want to have to teach Javascript, C# or C++ to the 30 teens, so I need something that has visual scripting or simple drag-and-drop tools.

Does a program like that exist?

If you are looking for something with a visual scripting language, I would take a look at Unreal 4. Epic just made it free for everyone and it has a visual scripting setup called "blueprints" that does an amazing job.

I started with Maratis 3D(http://forum.maratis3d.org). Uses Lua(Easy to use Language) and the api is simple. Free MIT liscense. My issue was it had fewer features than I liked.

The one I use now is Godot(http://www.godotengine.org/wp/). Steeper learning curve though. Unity has a steep learning curve, but I think they have more support.

Why did you aim to make a 3D computer game with 14-17 year old people in two days? That does not sound like something that was thought through! Is it too late to change plans?

Edit: Misread "Two week daycamp" as "Two weekday camp". Although I still think two weeks is a lofty goal and wonder how students benefit from such a rushed project.

Why did you aim to make a 3D computer game with 14-17 year old people in two days? That does not sound like something that was thought through! Is it too late to change plans?

It can be done.

Unreal is honestly your best choice for visual set up. But uh... have fun getting the models to work.

There is also game maker. But you need sprites.

And... Unity is very quick to set something up in a few hours. But it requires programming.

The sad truth is, you can't get out of any evil.

You'll want to prep heavily. Don't expect your two days to start with downloading an Engine. You're going to need to grab an engine, grab some content, put together an example project, make an easy installer or .ZIP or preinstall it onto the computers, and form a lesson plan that focuses on just the bits you want to teach using the bits you already prepped.

You can do this with pretty much any engine. Some will require less prep, some more, but no matter what you're going to have to do a bunch of work before your two day code camp ever starts.

Let me start by saying that I am speaking from a position of experience in this field. I have written technical training for summer camps, taught for three years a summer camp teaching game design/programming using Game Maker, and currently mentor high school students in using Game Maker to design and build computer games.

I am not sure where other people have been getting two days from since it appears you mentioned that the camp will last for two weeks. Two weeks is a reasonable amount of time for a summer camp program.

There are a number of factors to consider when picking technology for a summer camp project. The most obvious question is what sort of computer resources are available? School computer labs are usually fairly substandard. Also IT typically has computer lab computers locked down pretty tightly and fighting the administrations to get the correct software installed can prove difficult. If you are going to use a 3D engine and especially a modern 3D engine then you will need to ensure the computers have modern video cards (on board graphics for something like Unreal Engine 4 probably won't cut it).

I originally tried C#/XNA with my middle school students but that proved very difficult. The hardest part was the typing speeds of the students. I was not only trying to teach how to program and how to make a game, but in some cases I was having to teach basic computer skills and typing.

Game Maker is a nice choice because you can start the students off with the visual scripting and then move on to the more advanced GML scripting. It allows the students to be productive fast and that keeps them from becoming bored or frustrated.

I have avoided trying to have students make a 3D game because of the complexities introduced with regards to the math and the graphics. 2D art assets are far easier to draw and the programming is simpler. I think it might be hard to explain things like quaternions, rotational matrices, and shaders to that age group.

I know you said you must make a 3D game but this is just my thoughts on the matter. My main advice is just to make sure you know what the system specs on the machines you will be using are and to test any candidate software on the computer to ensure that it will work.

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Let me start by saying that I am speaking from a position of experience in this field. I have written technical training for summer camps, taught for three years a summer camp teaching game design/programming using Game Maker, and currently mentor high school students in using Game Maker to design and build computer games.

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Now I think about it... Game maker used to have a tutorial on making a game that was a plane scrolling arcade game. Also a platformer.

You should be able to find sprites all over the internet. Just remind students that they won't be expecting to make a profit.

The 3D requirement makes this tricky. Ordinarily I'd suggest something like GameMaker or Scratch, but that's not so great with 3D. Unity and Unreal can do quite a bit of drag and drop stuff, but they pretty quickly run into limitations.

Alternately, if I were asked to specifically teach programming, I'd start the students out on Processing and build towards using its 3D facilities. But that doesn't help you much.

I did find this article that might be helpful:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/182860/suck_at_coding_but_make_games_.php

I expect that whatever you end up doing will probably require you to do some prep work to prepare the basic engine and tools setup beforehand.