United States · Ages 13 to 18 · Summer 2027

Game design summer camp for teens

A good game design summer camp for teens ends with a game somebody else can play, not a certificate. That takes an engine, a team or a mentor, and a deadline. This page reads one of the most demanding US programs from its own 2027 page so families can see what the top end really asks, compares the engines a teenager can use legally at each age, walks through a short Godot script line by line, and sets out the six-week summer plan our teachers use online for teens who want to build a finished game from home.

Book the free first class Book a priority demo See the six-week plan Ask on WhatsApp

Live teaching since 2020 · 10,000+ students · one finished game as the goal

In short

A game design summer camp for teens should leave the student with one finished game, a short gameplay video and the ability to explain their code. Residential programs such as Carnegie Mellon’s National High School Game Academy run six weeks, need applicants aged 16 or older and close applications by March 1, 2027. Modern Age Coders teaches the same skills live online, ages 13 to 18, in a batch or one to one.

Build the game with a teacher

Three courses that turn a summer into a finished game

Pick by engine and by how much code the teen already writes. All three are live, with homework reviewed every week.

Game Development for Teens course thumbnail

GDSC / 01

Game development for teens

Ages 13 to 18. Unity and C#, from first scene to shipped build.

Open the syllabus →
JavaScript for Teens course thumbnail

GDSC / 02

Browser games in JavaScript

Ages 13 to 18. Games that run on a school Chromebook.

Open the syllabus →
Roblox Game Coding for Kids course thumbnail

GDSC / 03

Roblox games in Luau

Younger teens. Real scripts in Roblox Studio.

Open the syllabus →

The top end

What a selective teen game design program asks for in 2027

To see what serious looks like, we read the 2027 page of Carnegie Mellon’s National High School Game Academy (NHSGA) from start to finish. It is one residential program among many, not a ranking, and the details below are only what Carnegie Mellon publishes.

National High School Game Academy, 2027 cycle, from Carnegie Mellon Pre-College’s own page (read 17 October 2026)
PointWhat the 2027 page says
LengthSix weeks of video game development, June 26 to August 7, 2027, resident only
Age"You must be 16 years of age by June 26, 2027."
GradeA current sophomore or junior when applying; the page adds that "most of our admitted students will be juniors"
Grades in school"Have an academic average of B (3.0/4.0) or better."
TracksSoftware Development, Visual Arts or Graphic Design, Sound Design or Music Composition, Game Generalist
DeadlinesScholarship application February 1, 2027 (decisions April 1, 2027); basic application March 1, 2027, decided on a rolling basis
AttendanceIn person every day; "Work may not be done remotely."

The workload, in their numbers

The first two weeks are classes in 2D and 3D art, programming in Unity, project management, interactive storytelling, game design, animation, sound and public speaking. The page says "A typical day includes five hours of classes and three hours of homework."

It also says "We average approximately 20 total homework assignments over the first two weeks." Our arithmetic: two school weeks are ten weekdays, so that is about two assignments a day, every day, on top of class.

How the teams work

From week three, students build in teams of five or six: programmers, visual artists, generalists and sound designers. A one-week Lightning Round comes first, then a second team pitches three ideas and builds one original game from scratch.

One line surprises many applicants: "We do not assign that role in the NHSGA. Design is a collaborative effort." Nobody is hired as the game designer; design comes out of the whole team.

Source: Carnegie Mellon Pre-College, National High School Game Academy, read 17 October 2026. Dates are for the 2027 cycle; later cycles publish their own. We are not connected with Carnegie Mellon University, and we make no prediction about any admission decision.

Applying

The work sample rules, and what they teach every teen

Selective game programs judge what an applicant has already made. The NHSGA rules are unusually specific, and they are a good checklist even for a teen who never applies there.

Work samples for the 2027 NHSGA application, from Carnegie Mellon’s page
RuleWhat it says
No portfolio links"Do not submit a link to an online portfolio." Upload documents instead, ideally one PDF.
How many"No more than 10 documents or work examples should be submitted."
CodeWritten code is allowed if the applicant explains what skill each sample is meant to show.
Software track"If applying for a software position, please submit a video of the game or project being played or used live."
Team projectsAlways say which role the applicant performed on any shared project.
Prior experienceHelpful but not necessary; the page looks for a creative mindset shown through the samples.

Why the video matters so much

A reviewer can watch thirty seconds of play faster than they can install a build. A short capture that shows the core loop, a win and a loss tells them more than a page of description.

That is why every plan on this page ends with a recorded play-through, whichever engine the teen uses.

Saying who did what

Most teen games are built with friends. A sample that says "I wrote the enemy movement and the save system; my partner drew the art" is honest and much easier to judge.

Keep a short build diary from the first day of camp. Writing the role statement in March is then a matter of copying, not remembering.

Which engine

Godot, Unity or Roblox Studio: what each one allows at which age

Engine choice is partly about taste and partly about rules. Account and licence terms set real age lines, and the hardware at home decides the rest.

Engine facts from each maker’s own pages (read 17 October 2026); the last column is our recommendation
EngineWhat the maker publishesOur view: best fit
Godot"Godot Engine is free and open source", "released under the permissive MIT license"; GDScript "is the recommended language to learn"A teen who wants to own the whole game and learn clean scripting
UnityStudent plan for secondary school: "Students 16 years and older who are enrolled in an accredited educational institution"Older teens aiming at the C# and 3D skills many studios list
Roblox Studio"a free application available on Windows and Mac"; "Roblox Studio cannot run on Chromebooks or mobile devices such as smartphones."Younger teens who already play Roblox and want an audience fast
Browser JavaScriptNo single maker; our note: the code runs in the web browser, so nothing needs installingA Chromebook household, or a first game in a few days

Reading the age lines carefully

The Unity line above is the eligibility rule for the free Student plan for secondary school students. Check Unity’s current terms with your teen before creating any account, and keep a parent involved for anyone under 18.

Godot has no account at all, which is one reason we like it for a summer: download, open, build.

Ratings for the game itself

US families often judge teen games by the ESRB labels. The ESRB guide says Teen content "is generally suitable for ages 13 and up" and Everyone 10+ content "is generally suitable for ages 10 and up".

Our suggestion is to keep a student game within what Everyone 10+ describes, so the project can be shown at school, to grandparents and on an application without a second thought.

Sources: Godot licence, Godot FAQ, Unity Student plan, Roblox Studio setup, ESRB ratings guide, all read 17 October 2026. We are not connected with any of these companies or organisations.

Real code

A Godot movement script, and the bug every camp should teach

This is the player movement from Godot’s own first-game tutorial, set out as one script. It runs as written on an Area2D node once four input actions are mapped in the project settings.

Script 1 · eight-way movement that stays on screengdscript
extends Area2D

@export var speed = 400  # pixels per second, the value in Godot's own tutorial
var screen_size

func _ready():
    screen_size = get_viewport_rect().size

func _process(delta):
    var velocity = Vector2.ZERO
    if Input.is_action_pressed("move_right"):
        velocity.x += 1
    if Input.is_action_pressed("move_left"):
        velocity.x -= 1
    if Input.is_action_pressed("move_down"):
        velocity.y += 1
    if Input.is_action_pressed("move_up"):
        velocity.y -= 1
    if velocity.length() > 0:
        velocity = velocity.normalized() * speed
    position += velocity * delta
    position = position.clamp(Vector2.ZERO, screen_size)

Every line here uses calls documented in the Godot tutorial: Input.is_action_pressed, Vector2.normalized, clamp and get_viewport_rect. The engine calls _process once per frame and passes delta, the seconds since the last frame.

Script 2 · the same idea with one line missinggdscript
# The camp-week bug we set on purpose: no normalized() call.
func _process(delta):
    var velocity = Vector2.ZERO
    if Input.is_action_pressed("move_right"):
        velocity.x += 1
    if Input.is_action_pressed("move_down"):
        velocity.y += 1
    velocity = velocity * speed   # (1, 1) * 400 has length of about 566
    position += velocity * delta

Our arithmetic: holding right and down gives the vector (1, 1), whose length is the square root of 2, about 1.414. Times 400 that is about 566 pixels per second, so the player moves roughly 41 percent faster on a diagonal.

Why delta matters

Speed is in pixels per second, but the screen updates in frames. Multiplying by delta converts one into the other. At an assumed 60 frames a second, delta is about 0.0167, so the player moves about 6.7 pixels each frame (400 / 60).

On a slower laptop running 30 frames a second, delta doubles and the step doubles too, so the player still covers 400 pixels in a second. Without delta, a game runs at different speeds on different computers.

What the student learns

Vectors, frame time and clamping are the same ideas behind physics in any engine. A teen who can explain Script 2’s bug out loud understands something that later appears in Unity, in Roblox and in a high school physics class.

We set this bug deliberately in week two of our plan. Students find it by feel first, because diagonal movement looks wrong, and then prove it with the square root of 2.

Code source: Godot docs, Your first 2D game: Coding the player, read 17 October 2026. Script 2 and the arithmetic are ours.

Six weeks

Our six-week summer plan for one finished game

This is our plan for a teen learning from home with live classes. It assumes about six hours a week: two live lessons and the build time between them. It is deliberately smaller than a residential program, because a finished small game beats an unfinished large one.

Six weeks to a finished game (our plan)
WeekGoalFinished when
1Engine set up and a moving playerThe player moves, stays on screen and the teen can explain delta
2The core loopOne thing to collect or avoid, a score, and the diagonal bug found and fixed
3Win and loseA start screen, a game-over screen and a restart button
4PlaytestFour people outside the family played it; their three biggest complaints written down
5Fix and polishThe three complaints fixed; sound and one visual pass
6Ship and recordAn exported build, a 60 to 90 second play video, and a one-page build diary

Ages 13 and 14

Roblox Studio or browser JavaScript. One level, one mechanic, done properly.

Ages 15 and 16

Godot with GDScript. A short arcade game with a title screen and saved high score.

Ages 16 to 18

Unity or Godot, a level designed on paper first, and a gameplay video fit for an application.

Our time budget, for parents who want the number: six hours a week for six weeks is 36 hours. A residential day at the program above is five hours of class and three of homework, so 36 hours is roughly four and a half of those days. That is why our plan aims at one small game rather than two team games.

The portfolio

A portfolio checklist for a teen game designer

Whether the next step is a selective camp, a school showcase or a college application, the same few items do the work. This checklist is ours, built from the work-sample rules above.

  1. One finished game. Playable from start to end, with a way to win and a way to lose.
  2. A short play video. Sixty to ninety seconds of real play, with no music laid over the game’s own sound.
  3. A role statement. One sentence per project saying exactly what the teen made.
  4. One explained code sample. A function the teen wrote, with three lines on why it is built that way.
  5. A design page. The first sketch of the level next to a screenshot of the final one.
  6. A playtest note. What testers struggled with and what changed because of it.
  7. Everything in one PDF. Matching the no-links rule, with the video uploaded where the application allows it.

What not to include

Tutorial projects copied step by step. Reviewers recognise the standard first-game assets at a glance, and they show following, not designing.

Ten half-finished prototypes. The rule says no more than ten examples; three strong ones are better.

Using AI tools honestly

If an AI tool helped with art or code, say so in the role statement, exactly as you would credit a teammate.

Under-18 students should only use tools whose terms allow their age, with a parent aware of the account. In class we use AI mainly to explain an error message, not to write the game.

Choosing a camp

Residential, local day camp or live online: how to choose

There is no single right format. These are the questions we suggest families ask any program, including ours.

Questions to ask any game design summer program (our checklist)
QuestionWhy it matters
What does a student take home on the last day?A build and a video, or only a certificate?
Which engine, and can we keep using it at home?Free engines and accounts the teen is old enough to hold
How many students per instructor?Code help is one to one, even inside a group
Is there real code, or only visual tools?Both are valid; know which one you are paying for
What happens after the summer?A game started in July is often finished in September
Who owns the game?Teens should be free to publish and show their own work

For more on our summer formats, see the teen summer coding camp and the online coding summer camp pages. This page is about game design only.

Where your teen is now

Four stages on the way to a game portfolio

Where teens usually start when they ask about a game camp.

From player to game designer (ours)
StageWhat it looks like
1. PlayerPlays a lot, has ideas, has not opened an engine
2. TinkererHas followed a tutorial and changed some numbers
3. BuilderHas made a small game with a start and an end
4. DesignerHas shipped, playtested and explained a game of their own

For parents

Stage 1 to stage 3 in one summer is realistic with steady weekly lessons.

Watch for the playtest week. A teen who listens to testers is learning design, not only code.

For teens

Make the smallest game you would still be proud of, then make it feel good to play.

Write your build diary every session. Future you will need it for every application.

The catalogue

Nine courses for teens who want to make games

Each one runs live online with a teacher who reviews the student’s own project, in a batch or one to one.

I

First games

Ages 13 to 14

GDSC / START / 01

Roblox in Luau

Scripts, events and a real audience.

Open the syllabus
II

Real engines

Ages 14 to 18

GDSC / ENGINE / 03

Problem solving

The maths behind game systems.

Open the syllabus
III

Ship it

Strong builders

GDSC / SHIP / 02

Game jams and hackathons

Build to a deadline, as a team.

Open the syllabus

How lessons run

Live game design lessons that fit a summer

Weekdays or weekends, flexible: choose your batch, or for a very personalised plan choose 1-on-1 at your convenience, weekend mornings or weekdays.

Weekdays

Summer afternoons or evenings in your own time zone.

Weekends

A good fit around summer jobs and family trips.

1-on-1

Built around one teen’s game and pace.

Your engine

Unity, Godot, Roblox Studio or the browser.

Weekly build review

The teacher plays the latest version each week.

Playtest week

Real testers, written notes, real fixes.

Ship day

An exported build and a recorded play video.

From home

Any state, no travel, no dorm.

Group or private

Fifteen to twenty in a batch, or one to one.

Student work

Games and apps our students have built

A few projects from our learners, from first arcade games upward. More are on the student labs page.

NutriLife AI nutrition coach project screenshot

AI and ML

NutriLife

An AI nutrition coach that reads what you eat and works you toward a target.

by Bhavya · Open it

Misti AI chatbot for maths and coding screenshot

AI and ML

Misti

A chatbot that answers mathematics and programming questions, built and deployed by a student.

by Harshit · Open it

GuardianX AI internet safety assistant screenshot

AI and ML

GuardianX

An assistant that helps a young person recognise unsafe situations online.

by Vivaan · Open it

SkyCast weather forecast application screenshot

Web app

SkyCast

A weather forecasting site with live conditions for any location.

by Krish

Fees

Fees

Game design classes are billed month by month in US dollars. A teen can take one summer month, or keep going into the school year to finish a bigger game, with no long contract either way.

Free first class

USD 0

no card required

  • A free first lesson
  • Bring a game idea
  • No card details
Book it

Group batch

USD 100

a month, billed in US dollars

  • Fifteen to twenty learners
  • One regular teacher
  • Choose your batch
  • Monthly
Start here

One to one

USD 150

a month, billed in US dollars

  • A mentor to yourself
  • Your engine, your game
  • Timed around summer plans
Enquire

What families say

Rated 4.9 across 547 Google reviews

What parents wrote about us on Google, word for word.

★★★★★

"The one step solution for my son. Modern Age Coders make learning coding so simple that kids love it. The teachers explain complex concepts clearly with practical exercises and interactive content."

Ria Mukherjee

Parent

★★★★★

"Modern Age Coders has been a game-changer for me. I struggled to grasp IT concepts and coding before joining, but their classes transformed everything. I can now confidently write complex programs with ease."

Samriddha Mondal

Student

★★★★★

"One of the most wonderful education centres out there. Education is not limited to school syllabus but focuses on skill development."

Vansh Agarwal

Student

★★★★★

"My child Dhairya is really enjoying the Modern Age Coders classes. This is his first online class and he eagerly looks forward to it. I can already see his improvement, and the teachers are very cooperative."

Sonam Oswal

Parent of Dhairya

★★★★★

"Modern Age Coders have wonderful teachers who teach in a clear, easy and practical way. The teacher boosts students' confidence and inspires them to learn without hesitation."

Sonu Goyal

Parent

★★★★★

"I highly recommend this computer coding class! The teachers are incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about coding."

Ritu Kedia

Parent

Questions from families

Game design summer camp for teens: common questions

What should a teen get out of a game design summer camp?

One finished game that someone else can play, a short video of it being played, and the ability to explain their own code. A certificate on its own shows very little.

How old do you have to be for the National High School Game Academy?

Carnegie Mellon's 2027 page says applicants must be 16 by June 26, 2027 and be a sophomore or junior when they apply, with a B average or better. We are not connected with the program.

When are the 2027 NHSGA deadlines?

The 2027 page lists February 1, 2027 for the scholarship application, with decisions on April 1, 2027, and March 1, 2027 for the basic application, decided on a rolling basis.

Which game engine should a teenager learn first?

For a 13 or 14 year old who plays Roblox, Roblox Studio. For a teen who wants clean scripting and full ownership, Godot. For older teens aiming at C# and 3D, Unity. That is our view, not a rule.

Is Godot really free?

Yes. The Godot licence page says Godot Engine is free and open source, released under the permissive MIT license. No account is needed to download it.

Can my teen use Unity for free?

Unity offers a free Student plan. Its page says secondary school students qualify at 16 years and older if enrolled in an accredited educational institution.

Can my teen make games on a Chromebook?

Roblox's own education FAQ says Roblox Studio cannot run on Chromebooks. Browser-based JavaScript games work well on a Chromebook, which is why we teach that route to Chromebook families.

Is an online game design camp as good as a residential one?

They are different. Residential camps give team life on campus; live online classes give a regular teacher, no travel and the chance to keep building after summer. Choose by what your teen needs.

When are your classes?

Weekdays or weekends, flexible: choose your batch, or for a very personalised plan choose 1-on-1 at your convenience, weekend mornings or weekdays.

How can Modern Age Coders help over the summer?

A regular teacher takes your teen through our six-week plan in the engine that suits them, reviews each build, runs a playtest week and helps record the final play video.

Elsewhere on this site

Related pages

More for teens who build games and want to keep going.

Summer coding camp for teens

Our general summer program.

How to make a Roblox game

Three working Luau scripts.

Hackathons for high schoolers

Game jams under a clock.

Congressional App Challenge

Games are eligible apps too.

Coding classes in the USA

Every page for US families.

Student labs

Projects our learners shipped.

Learn to code Minecraft mods

Minecraft modding in Java for teens: Fabric or Forge, Java versions, a first item.

Python games for kids

Python games kids can code: a guessing game, then pygame, step by step.

MakeCode Arcade help

MakeCode Arcade help: jumping, gravity, tilemap levels and lost projects.

Start here

Book a free first lesson

Bring the game your teen keeps describing at dinner. In the first lesson the teacher picks an engine with them and cuts the idea down to something that can be finished this summer.

Curious how a lesson actually runs? Our teaching method page walks through one, and every syllabus sits on the course list.

WhatsApp us · +91 91233 66161 · connect@modernagecoders.com

Teachers join by video from India. There is nothing to drive to; families in every US state message us on WhatsApp.

The first lesson is free. Nothing to pay today.

Want a class sooner? Book a priority demo

A priority demo is a full class of about 45 to 60 minutes. After the class the mentor sends a written skill report and a personal learning roadmap on WhatsApp. If you enrol, the demo fee is adjusted against your first month's fee. Share your demo Order ID with us on WhatsApp and we take it off.

Book a priority demo

Keep exploring Modern Age Coders

Related courses and guides

Learn more

Free resources

From the blog

Start here

Free classPriority demoCall us