Meet Branden, the 11-Year-Old Creator of “Licky Kid”

Branden is an 11-year-old from Chicago, Illinois who coded one of our favorite projects that’s been published to the Tynker Community, “Licky Kid.” Read on to learn more about why he loves to code, to hear about his other hobbies, and, of course, to play the wonderfully quirky “Licky Kid”!

What are your hobbies? Tennis, biking, running, videogames, and piano.

What do you want to be when you grow up? A scientist or an engineer.

How did you get introduced to coding? In January, 2016, one of my friends was playing Tynker and making a game. I was interested what it was, so I asked him, and he showed me the name. I started coding and realized I could code anything.

What is your favorite thing you’ve made? “Licky Kid” was one of my best and creative games I’ve made. It’s about a kid eating snowballs, snowball birds, and ice cubes while avoiding licking birds and people. It’s a weird concept, but people loved it.

What’s your favorite project you’ve seen in the Tynker Community? I like the “Real Pong” project. It’s new and no one else has thought of anything like that yet.

What’s your favorite feature in Tynker? Community sharing. I like to share projects with the public so then I can see what others have made and make new ideas.

What are you planning to make next? A space battle game. I used one of my old games and made it better, like I did with “The World of Stickmen.”

What do you do with a project when you’re done with it? If I like the project, then I post it. If I’m not sure if it’s good or not, I save it for later. “The World of Stickmen” used to be an idea for two weeks but then I learned more things and started to improve it.

Why do you like to code? I like to code because it lets me show my creativity and ideas. It’s also fun to code because coding lets me make games that are new and unique.

Do you think other kids should try coding? I think other kids should try coding. If they are uninterested, then they don’t need to. But, if they are interested, they have the potential to become good at coding.

What advice would you give for kids starting out with Tynker? I’m not sure what I’d say, but maybe it would be “Try the beginner projects, and work your way up to making advanced projects. Then, try making your own projects and posting them.” The way I learned to code with Tynker was actually looking at popular projects and learning how to code complex things from there.

Branden’s father Ken says he remembers learning to code as a kid with Basic, but says it would have been much easier if he had had a program like Tynker: “I’m jealous! I wish they had something like this when I was a kid so it would be easy to program and understand a computer language.” For Ken, learning to code as a kid is really important because it “has great benefits of allowing kids to be able to have fun while learning a computer language and using their creativity in building a program that they can be proud of, as well as share with others.”

Thanks so much for talking to us, Branden, and for sharing your game “Licky Kid”! We’re always so excited when we see that you’ve published a new project.

Looking for more fun? Play Branden’s “Slime Simulator” game.