Tom's round up Jan 23rd
A big welcome to new teammates, a quick update of the hacks from last week, and the game coming up this week in the Game Dev Club!
If you don't know me, I'm Tom! One of the mentors and I make a lot of the projects both online and offline. A lot has happened the in past seven days but, I'll try to keep it brief!
This weeks game was "Turret Defender", a tower defence game. After many requests for this classic strategy game subgenre, we finally made one. Given how insanely good the hacks to the game were, we really should have done this sooner! There were plenty of upgradable turrets, new types of enemies and wiggly paths going all over the place.
Two new teammates also joined this week: Caitlin and Lee. They've part of the content team and will be making plenty of projects for you all to try. It's great to have them on board.
Coming up, next week's game is "Sky High Speedy", a lane-based infinite runner with plenty of potential hacks. Plus a look at playing sounds in projects, a targeting mechanic and a "Splat" project.
As always, just give us a shout if you need anything.
Tom
What a week in the clubs looks like
Posts like this one are what actually happens in a session, written by the mentors who ran it. A Game Dev Club session is one hour a week, in a group of no more than six, with the same mentor every week, online or at one of our in-person clubs.
That cap is deliberate: it is what makes it possible for a mentor to notice when a child has gone quiet, or has rebuilt the same game four weeks running because they are avoiding something harder.
Children build their own games rather than working through a set course. Levels move down as readily as up, so the work always fits, and staying where you are is a perfectly good outcome. Every mentor is DBS-checked and STEM-certified.
Most children start in Scratch or MakeCode and move to Python and TypeScript when they are ready. Mentors write a note on every child after every session, which is how we know when somebody is ready to move up, and it is why a child who has gone quiet for three weeks does not simply go unnoticed.
More than a third of our members are autistic or have ADHD, based on what parents tell us when they join. Children can keep the camera off, type instead of speaking, take a break without it disrupting anyone, and step away and come back.
In 2025 we received the Autism Inclusion Award from the National Autistic Society, and in 2026 we were ranked second in the UK in Club Hub UK’s Top 100 Children’s Activity Providers.
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.
