👋 Parents and guardians: read this first
What this project is: your child designs a simple game (they already know how from this course), and you two use Google Gemini, a free AI assistant from Google, to generate a small playable browser game (one HTML file), a quiz game, or a printable board game. You do not need ANY coding experience. Gemini writes the code; your job is to paste prompts, save a file, and cheer.
- Getting set up: open gemini.google.com in a browser and sign in with YOUR Google account. Gemini accounts are for ages 13+, so the account and the typing stay in your hands, with your child directing the creativity beside you.
- Time needed: 45 to 90 minutes. It is fine to split it over two evenings.
- Safety: never enter your child's full name, school, address, photos, or any personal details into the AI. The prompts below need none of that. You review everything the AI produces before your child uses it.
- If something does not work: paste the error or describe what happened back into Gemini and ask it to fix it. This "it broke, fix it" loop is genuinely how software gets built, and it is a great lesson for your child to see.
- Why this matters: your child directing an AI to build something real is exactly the skill this whole course has been building toward: not just using technology, but commanding it.
Step 1: dream up your game 💭
Every great game starts with a plan. Grab your grown-up and fill in your Game Design Sheet:
Game Design Sheet Make your choices 📝
Quick game: Prompt Match 🃏
A clear prompt is a picture in words. AI builds what you clearly describe, so match each game idea to its picture and lock the idea in your mind!
Step 2: build it with Gemini 🤖
Your prompt asks Gemini for a blocky 3D game starring YOUR hero. Gemini will answer with code. Here is what the grown-up does with it:
Saving and playing your game (grown-up steps)
- In Gemini's answer, find the code block and press its copy button.
- Open Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac, set to plain text in Format menu).
- Paste the code, then save the file as our-game.html (not .txt!).
- Find the saved file and double-click it. It opens in your browser, and the game is ON! 🎉
Step 3: make it YOURS 🔧
No game is perfect on try one! Play it together. Then tell Gemini what to change. Try these, one at a time:
Each time: copy the new code, save, refresh. That loop is called iteration. Real game studios do it all day!
Ask Gemini: "Help us design a printable board game for a 9-year-old about [your idea]. Give us the rules, the board layout we can draw on cardboard, and 20 question cards." Print or draw it, cut out the cards, and play at the dinner table. It is 100% a real AI-built game.
Step 4: the grand test 🎉
A game is not finished until somebody ELSE plays it! Invite a cousin or a friend. Watch them play. Ask: what was fun? What was confusing? That is called a playtest.
1) The grown-up drives the AI account, always. 2) Never tell the AI your full name, school, address, or any secrets. Your game hero does not need your real name! 3) The AI is your builder, but YOU and your family are the bosses: you decide what goes in your game.
Proud of your game? You should be! Your family can enter it in the AI Solution Challenge, the grand finale of The Genius Project summer, where teens and preteens show off the AI things they built. Sign-up takes one minute.
🎮 3D Vox game: Clear or Fuzzy?
AI builders need CLEAR instructions. Sort each prompt: does it tell the AI exactly what to build, or leave it guessing?
One last step: the quiz and your certificate! 🏆