Thirty-six lessons in which students ship eight complete games on a screen of 8 192 pixels — every line real, typed Python. It ends with two boards playing Pong against each other over radio, running code your students wrote.
New pilot course · Now booking
Who
Ages 10–15 · Grades 5–9
What
36 lessons · 6 units · 8 games
How long
Full year · 45–60 min each
Kit
One board per student
No board?
Runs in the browser
Curriculum
Coding & Robotics · CAPS-aligned
How it builds
From one pixel to a two-player network game.
Every lesson carries exactly one game idea and one Python idea, and every unit ends with a finished game that has the student's name on it. Nothing below is an illustration — each screen is the real course program, run.
Unit 1Lessons 1–6
The Game Loop
Lesson 6 · Star Catcher's title screen
Pixels, the update–draw–show heartbeat, buttons, velocity, collision. By lesson 6 they ship Star Catcher — title screen, three lives, rising difficulty, sound.
One board · first typed Python
Unit 2Lessons 7–12
Tilt & Motion
Lesson 10 · Tilt Maze, level 1
The board itself becomes the controller: deadzones, smoothing, real gravity. Two games — Tilt Maze, steered by tilting the board, then Sky Jumper, an endless climber with a camera.
Motion sensor · two games
Unit 3Lessons 13–18
Virtual Pet
Lesson 16 · sheenPet, well fed
Their first object: sheenPet, a creature whose needs are a Python class — fed by buttons, sunned by a real light sensor, and asleep the moment the room goes dark.
Light sensor · touch · first class
Unit 4Lessons 19–24
Snake & Blockfall
Lesson 23 · Blockfall's opening frame
The algorithm unit: a snake that is a list, falling pieces that are data, rotation that is maths. The classics, rebuilt from first principles — then remixed with their own rules.
Lists & grids · two classics
Unit 5Lessons 25–30
Platformer
Lesson 30 · Pixel Runner, world 1
Sprites drawn as strings, levels typed as text, a camera that follows the hero: Pixel Runner is a genuine side-scroller with enemies, coins, lives and a flag — and level 2 is theirs to design.
Sprites · tilemaps · camera
Unit 6Lessons 31–36
Radio Multiplayer
Lesson 35 · the versus arcade's ready check
Two boards, one shared world: a message protocol, a ball that exists on exactly one screen at a time, fairness by handshake — Duel Pong and a tug-of-war, then a Game Jam of their own.
Radio · two players · Game Jam
The lesson that lands
Lesson 1 draws a pixel. Lesson 36 ships a network game.
Both columns below are real lessons from this course, printed exactly as students meet them — the first program of the year against the finished two-player Pong they build in the final unit.
Lesson 34 · Duel Pong, mid-rally — two boards, one ball, real radio
The same student, first lesson against last
Lesson 1
Lesson 34
The program
A blinking title
Two-player Pong
Lines of Python
28
158
Inputs it reads
—
Buttons + radio
State it tracks
1 counter
Ball · scores · serve · presence
The big idea
show() flips the frame
One authority per fact
Nothing in between is a worksheet. All 36 programs run — in the browser simulator inside each lesson, on the board in class, and in an automated build that replays every game's rules before a single page could be printed.
The capstone
Game Jam.
The final lesson hands over a clean, commented game template and sixty minutes. Students design on paper first — one genre, one mechanic, one twist — then build, playtest and pitch.
00:00
The design doc. Three boxes on paper: the genre, the one mechanic, the one twist. No code until all three are filled in.
+20:00
Playable. The template's title screen now belongs to their game, and something — however ugly — is fun to touch. That deadline is the whole discipline.
+40:00
Polished. The juice pass: sound on every event, a flash on every hit, a difficulty curve — the same checklist Star Catcher taught in lesson 6.
+50:00
Playtest swap. Every game is played by someone who did not write it, and the feedback lands on paper, not over shoulders.
+60:00
The showcase. Boards up, room plays, four stars on the rubric: fun, finished, craft, and one thing you learned.
Bring it to your school
Book a pilot term.
We train your teacher on the first unit, supply the boards, and leave all thirty-six lessons in your LMS. Class needs no internet at all — a room, the boards, and one teacher willing to lose at Duel Pong in public.
