Begin Programming: Build Your First Mobile Game

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Take your first steps into the world of computer programming and learn how to build your own mobile game in just five weeks.

You’ll be introduced to the basic constructs and the principles behind computer programs, as well as the building blocks that are used to create them.

Using the same tools as industry professionals, you’ll create algorithms to solve problems and translate them into code.

Each week you’ll put into practice your new-found skills by changing the game code provided in the course, creating a game unique to you.

This beginners’ course teaches the basics of programming and you don’t need any knowledge of coding to take part. You may find it challenging at times, but we hope it’ll be fun too. However, the course does require you to be comfortable downloading, unzipping and installing software to your computer. If you think that you may find this difficult, you may like to have someone with a good knowledge of IT on hand to help you – particularly in Week 1.

The 4 hours per week is an estimate based on past participants’ experiences, however some previous participants have reported taking much less time, while others take considerable longer to complete some weeks. This will depend on your experience and to some extent how powerful your computer is.

This course includes video content and other visual teaching methods. As such, blind and visually impaired students may need a helper.

The course will give you an opportunity to write and edit your own programming code using specific software. To run this software effectively, we recommend a computer (Windows, Mac or Linux) that has a dual-core processor and a minimum of 2GB of RAM — though this may vary. For information on operating system support see the Android developers’ site.

We do recommend using a computer to complete the practical coding exercises in this course, but if you just want to watch the videos and read the tutorials, you should be able to access these on most web connected devices, such as smartphones, tablets and consoles.

We recommended that you have an Android device (such as a phone or tablet) running at least Android 2.2 on which you can test and run your game. If you don’t have an Android device you can use an emulator on your computer, but this is a much slower and more error-prone process.