All About: Game Dev Club Modder
Here at The Code Zone, we have two distinct yet similar clubs for our members: Hacker and Modder. We thought we’d take a little bit of time this week to talk to you a little more about the latter of the two, our Modder clubs!
Here at The Code Zone, we have two distinct yet similar clubs for our members: Hacker and Modder. We thought we’d take a little bit of time this week to talk to you a little more about the latter of the two, our Modder clubs!
Our Modder Clubs work in an engine called “Microsoft Makecode” which has three varying levels for our members to try out! We start every single one of our Modder Members in the blocks, jigsaw puzzle pieces reminiscent of working in Scratch.
(Which a lot of our members have started their journey with in Hackers!) This gives a solid start to learning the foundations upon which the games we play are built. This is what level 1 and 2 members work with.
The next stage, once our members are comfortable and masters of the blocks, is Python! Python is a globally used programming language and helps to learn transferable skills to either bigger python projects down the line; or, to other programming languages! The written code comes with its own set of challenges, introducing pseudocode, an almost English, human readable set of instructions that tell us what code should be doing! Level 3 and 4 members will be working with this!
Our third stage of Makecode is Typescript. Typescript is a javascript based language, but suited more towards our game development side of things. Typescript has a little more freedom when it comes to changing how games work, and can look a little intimidating at first, so we save it for those who have gotten comfortable working with python! This is what level 5 and 6 members will be playing with!
Our Modder games also tend to be a bit more complex, with us working on some of them for a couple of weeks to let our members' creativity shine and add in all the cool features and ideas we work on!
And that’s it! We hope you enjoyed this look in to the inner workings of a Game Dev Modder club, and if it’s inspired you to start your own journey, come along and sign up for a free taster session for one of our clubs!
Who wrote this
We run coding clubs for children aged 6 to 16, so the guides here are written by the mentors who teach them rather than by a marketing team. Live online clubs are open to children anywhere in the UK, and our in-person clubs run across Essex, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk.
A live club is one hour a week, in a group of no more than six, with the same DBS-checked, STEM-certified mentor.
Children build their own games rather than working through a set course, starting in Scratch or MakeCode and moving to Python and TypeScript when they are ready. More than a third of our members are autistic or have ADHD, based on what parents tell us when they join.
Mentors write a note on every child after every session, which is how we know when somebody is ready to move up a level or would rather stay where they are. Levels move down as readily as up. Nothing is forced, and staying put is a perfectly good outcome.
In 2026 we were ranked second in the UK in Club Hub UK’s Top 100 Children’s Activity Providers, scored by five independent judges on safeguarding, inclusivity and community impact, and in 2025 we received the Autism Inclusion Award from the National Autistic Society. Over 1,000 children are enrolled.
More like this
The blog is in two halves. Guides are the evergreen explainers written by the mentors who teach the clubs, covering the questions parents actually ask: what comes after Scratch, how to support a coding-mad child when you cannot code yourself, and what works for autistic and ADHD children.
Club news is the other half, and it is where posts like this one live: game jams, Minecraft builds and weekly roundups, written up by whoever ran the session. Neither is marketing. If you want to know what an hour actually looks like before you book anything, club news is the more honest read of the two.
The first session is a free taster and we do not ask for card details. Book a free taster session, see what it costs, or read about support for neurodivergent children.
