A new book aimed at younger coders will provide source code for twenty classic game types. Young coders can type in the code directly and then run it. “I wanted to createa book that would get non-coders interested and allow them to have fun creating games using code.” – Gary Plowman, Gazzapper Games. Gary Plowman is the Founder of Gazzapper Games (www.gazzapper.com), an Indie Game Studio based out of Dublin, Ireland. They have several titles available on Google Play and over a million downloads. Gary got his first computer in the eighties, a ZX Spectrum, which he used to learn Sir Clive Sinclair’s BASIC. Gary says that learning early and using a simple language like Sinclair BASIC was the key to keeping him interested in coding at such a young age.



“I wasn’t the kind of kid to spend all my time coding, and computer games were a huge distraction. Playing soccer with my mates meant I didn’t have the time to devote to learning machine code. So learning BASIC was the compromise and it does provide a great basis for coding – There are many more high performing high-level languages now than there was back then and most new languages try to be simple and easier to understand. I still feel that BASIC is a great starting point for younger coders that need more time to develop.”



Gary decided to write a book containing up to twenty games in code form, which he wrote especially for this book. These Type-In Listings are full games (including rudimentary graphics) in code form. The code consists of line numbers and the coding instructions. The BASIC language that is used is very similar to English and similar to logical task it performs making it ideal for new coders. In the eighties, before high street shops sold games directly, many magazines would publish games for the user to type in directly. Many of the top developers got their start coding using BASIC before moving into professional development.

The book is called ZX Spectrum Games Code Club and it contains many different game types including a clone of Flappy Bird, ZX Breakout, Astral Invaders, Numbers Game (math-based) and simplified Tetris-type game plus many more.

Many countries including the UK, Europe and United States are looking to boost interest in coding with younger pupils and trying to get the parents to help encourage them to join code clubs and similar initiatives.

More information on the book can be found at http://gazzapper.com/games/zx-spectrum-code-club/

