scratch

Scratch is a drag and drop programming language developed by MIT. You can access the main site to create an online account here. It has a lot of similarities with Blockly in it's appearance and structure, but is primarily used for game development. Scratch is designed especially for young people ages 8 to 16, but people of all ages create and share with Scratch. Younger children may want to try ScratchJr, a simplified version of Scratch designed for ages 5 to 7.

While the new book from the video series is only available to buy, the old version of the book is here. The videos and concepts are still relevant, and while the version and functions available in Scratch have improved, many things have stayed the same- as with Python, Java, C++ etc, updates add new features and they try to keep as much as possible backward compatible so that older code will not "break".

Many of the concepts that arise in game programming with Scratch will arise again in Python with the PyGame or Arcade library for games. It's also a fun application to learn, teach and use.

Complete video tutorials 9 and 19 from the video series above. While the other lessons are useful, these two videos cover the logic and mechanics that are needed to complete an example task.