Code Hero connects to a whole world of code to teach you how to unleash your creativity. Here are some links and tools to explore.
Resources to help build your games with
Free Art Resources
LORC'S game-icons.net
An ever growing collection of game icons. Dozen new symbols are added weekly and organized in intuitive categories to offer both a comfy browsing and let room for serendipity. Easy styling thanks to SVG. To get bitmap versions of icons, view them on the web site and right-click them to Copy Image then paste into a 512x512 canvas.
Recommended Code Hero-like Games For Kids
Some kids are too young to master Code Hero yet, but there are lots of games that are complimentary as good preparation for playing Code Hero.
Minecraft
Minecraft is a game about placing blocks to build anything you can imagine. At night monsters come out, make sure to build a shelter before that happens. It also has music by C418!
Every kid should have lego blocks to build things with and play the Minecraft video game to build worlds of blocks inside the computer. Minecraft was created by Notch and Jeb, two of the Heroes of Code Hero.
When you first start playing Minecraft, there are no instructions to explain its mysteries. It is dangerous to go alone. Take this: The Minecraft Wiki.
Portal 2
Portal and Portal 2 are so amazing you simply have to install STEAM and get the Portal Demo which is free so there is no excuse not to play it.
Portal 1 Free Demo
Portal 1: First Slice lets you play 11 levels of Portal! Once you try it you'll be hooked and you can buy Portal and Portal 2.
CodeSpells: Learn how to cast code spells to help gnomes rediscover their magic.
Recommended Game Design Tools For Kids
Kodu
Kodu lets kids create games on the PC and XBox via a simple visual programming language. Kodu can be used to teach creativity, problem solving, storytelling, as well as programming. Anyone can use Kodu to make a game, young children as well as adults with no design or programming skills.
Scratch
Scratch is a programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.
As young people create and share Scratch projects, they learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.
ALICE
Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing. It uses 3D graphics and a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a more engaging, less frustrating first programming experience.
Free Programming Books
Apps That Teach Programming
Rubymonk: Learn Ruby
Games That Teach Related Arts & STEM skills
Synthesia: A game to learn to play piano keyboards
Kerbal Space Program: Design your own space program! This game really is rocket science.
Cart Life: A game that teaches you how hard it is to survive doing a retail job that will make you want to learn computer programming!
Learn To Contribute To Free & Open Software
OpenHatch.org: Learn how to contribute to free software projects by using Git source control and more.
Organizations That Teach Programming
Hack The Future is hackerspace-style mentoring for young people! At each event, 100 kids enter and produce 100 amazing ideas that turn into projects with the hlep of geek mentor volunteers. Participants are free to choose amongst tables offering everything from Unity3D game programming (taught by Code Hero team members) to robotics and entrepreneurship with kids pitching startups and demoing games they've made and taking home the beginnings of lifelong learning interests.
Resources For Coder Women
Here are some communities and resources by and for coder women. Ada Lovelace invented computer programming in 1862, the first programmer team of the first digital computer ENIAC was six women like Jean Bartik and Kay Mauchley, and Grace Hopper invented the first English-like grandmother programming language COBOL in 1959. Startup brogrammer mythology is quite backwards, as the generic term for a programmer was originally "computer girl". Here are some ways to start:
Ada Initiative is a non-profit organization that seeks to increase women's participation in the free culture movement, open source technology and open culture. The organization was founded in 2011 by Linux kernel developer and open source advocate Valerie Aurora and open source developer and advocate Mary Gardiner (the founder of AussieChix, the largest organization for women in open source in Australia). It is named for Ada Lovelace, the "world's first computer programmer," in honor of whom the Ada programming language is named.
Girls Who Code is an orgnization that teaches girls coding and entrepreneurship. Twitter and many other excellent groups and orgnizations have come together to empower young women with the support and opportunities to shine and innovate.
Alliances for Computer Science Education
CS4HS Google's computer science 4 high schools