First Grader Zora Ball Becomes The Youngest Mobile Game Developer

At only 7 years old, child prodigy Zora Ball is already on her way to becoming one of tomorrows brightest video game programming stars. Little Ms. Ball has become the youngest person ever to create a mobile game app, which was unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania’s Bootstrap Expo last month according to the Pittsburgh Courier.

[jujubee88]

Oh yeah, I have just been playing games my whole life.

.......Fair trade off if you ask me! :D

**Eats goverment cheese and procrastinates making social contact.

~_^

[ATi_Elite]

A 7 year old Creates her first mobile game and depending on the value of her work by 9 years old she might be a millionaire! I'm old enough to drink and I'm No where even close to being a millionaire....Dam Public School Education LOL!

I'm gonna go see if I can play it! This is a great story.....and on N4G....unbelievable.

Once again Congrats to Zora The Game Developer!

[SilentNegotiator]

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. What kind of game did she make? We're talking about a super-simple programming language. If she's making pong on Game Maker 7, I'm not impressed; you could teach any 7-year-old to memorize a few lines of code.

[BanBrother]

The amount of steaming piles of s*** I have played on mobile/ios I could have sworn they were made by 6 year olds. Suppose I was pretty close.

Good on her though. Most 6 year old girls stay at home watching Dora all day or playing with dolls (well, at least the ones I know). Her parents would be very proud. This is the sort lf thing the media should shine a light on, instead of that negative crap all the time. Bravo little girl, bravo!

[Moncole]

wonder how much help she had.

[ApolloTheBoss]

Lot of potential. A future gaming icon? Hope I live to see it.

[meowthemouse]

Oh yes! Can't wait to play her games!!

[Shadonic]

I feel sad because i cant program for shit yet a 6 year old can time to go study some youtube vids.

[a411411]

Just wow... as a programmer myself who just learned C++ and Html coding i feel so obsolete...

[FlyingFoxy]

What she can program in code at 7 years old?, i call bullshit.

I doubt a 7 year old could even use Multi Media Fusion properly.. though i'd believe it more if it's made with that.. or not, some people can't even use that program and it doesn't use programming code.

[DarkBlood]

so you feel ashamed at the idea of potientally being outsmarted by someone who isnt older then you?

[SilentNegotiator]

She's using some ultra-simplified programming language. You could teach any 7 year old to make pong with a simple language.

The problem is a severe lack of details in this article. What engine did she create with? What sort of game did she make?

[admiralvic]

Well the article wants us to believe something impressive, but expresses it in the vaguest possible way.

What type of game did she make?
How well did it play?
Is it long?
Graphics?
etc...

I am not saying I am expecting a first grader to match Uncharted in any aspect, but there is a HUGE difference between making an extremely simple game like @SilentNegotiator keeps saying "Pong" and making something of a little more depth. Heck we don't even know if she got help or not or any detail past "she did it".

I think it's great that people want to cover interesting / "inspiring" stories like this, but it means nothing if you make a vague claim and give a location.

[rainslacker]

She had the ambition to make something, which is more than I can say for a lot of the people casting disparaging remarks towards her efforts. The game may be complete crap, or it could be the next angry birds. Or it could just be what the expo was for...teaching kids to do stuff and getting them involved.

From their facebook page

The students at the Wilson Community School and the Columbus Square Recreation Center have been hard at work this summer. They've learned to program their own video games through the use of algebra! Now they want to show their work to you.

About the program from the sponsors page

http://fatetech.org/about/f...

Basically it's a boot strap program, which teaches fundamentals of programming to kids. Nothing anywhere I found said that she was releasing this game, or that she was the only one involved in making it. Could have been a group of people, like many of these things are. The article title and content is misleading, and is looking for that awww...how cute hit.

Edit: If this kid actually is releasing this game, then all the media outlets involved in getting the story out there and eventually to here to N4G have done her a great disservice by not even saying the name of the game, or giving the slightest detail about it. In the end, it's not about who makes the game, but what the game is.

[TheFirstClassic]

Well if she is a child genius it is possible. She isn't a normal seven year old.

[Saleem101]

Wow thats crazy...

[3-4-5]

app probably is crap...but if she keeps it up by the time she's 13-14 she will probably actually be creating something useful.

good for her.