I built this for my son.
Enough parents asked that I'm opening it up.
This summer I made a way for my game-obsessed kid to learn how games really work — and build his own with AI. I shared it, and enough of you wanted in that it's now a five-afternoon boot camp. Your child designs a game, builds it by directing AI in plain English, ships it online, and pitches it on Demo Day — learning AI, computers, and English along the way.
Every summer, school is out for almost two months. My son Rui is crazy about games — so instead of just letting him play them, I built him a way to understand how they work and make his own. (That's why it's called Rui's Academy.)
This is personal for me. A 3D games course in university is the whole reason I went into computer science in the first place. Games are how I fell in love with building — and I wanted to share that spark with Rui. The beautiful part: while he builds a game, he's really learning programming, how the digital world works, how to break a big project into small pieces — and how to do it all by directing an AI.
I shared what I made with a few friends, and enough of them asked "can my kid do this too?" that I decided to run it properly — as a small summer boot camp, taught by me, in person.
We created Game Builders Academy — free to explore.
It's a playful, interactive journey into how games are really made: a twelve-stop path through variables, functions, and loops, plus the bigger picture — using AI, what a server is, and how the internet actually works. Every lesson comes with a little mini-app to play with and break, so kids learn by doing, not by watching.
There's even a tour through gaming history, from Pac-Man and Tetris all the way to Among Us. The academy is free to explore right now — the summer boot camp is where a small group goes further, with me in the room, all the way to shipping their own game on Demo Day.
What your child leaves with
A real game they built
Designed and built by them, live on a public link they can send to grandparents and friends.
Real AI fluency
The habit of directing an AI to build things — the skill that will define how their generation works.
More comfort in English
Days of reading, writing prompts, and presenting — all in English, with a reason to get the words right.
Presentation skills
They stand up and pitch their shipped game on Demo Day — a first taste of showing work to a room.
Passion & confidence
The spark my son got: the realization that you can build the things you love, not just play them.
Four things, taught as one project
Games are the vehicle
Kids build something they already love. Every concept is learned by making a real game — not from a slide.
Computers & programming
How a game and a computer really work — the loop, coordinates, collisions, servers, networking — and how to think like a builder.
Building with AI
The headline skill: describing what you want in plain words and directing an AI to build it. Set up day one, used every session.
English
The language it all happens in — and the twist: writing a clear prompt to an AI is English writing. Better English → better prompts → a better game.
5 afternoons across 2 weeks
from a single game loop → Demo Day- 1Wed · Jul 22Understand the machine
Meet Your AI Helper + How the Machine Works
Set up a personal AI helper, then crack open how a game really works: the game loop, coordinates, and the world as a giant grid.
- 2Fri · Jul 24Build the parts
Turn a Moving Toy Into a Real Game
Collisions and hitboxes, sprites and animation, then goals, score & game-over — and a first enemy with a mind of its own.
- 3Mon · Jul 27Think & design
Think Like a Builder + Design Your Game
The pro thinking tricks — recipes, lists & loops, architecture, debugging — then each kid writes the first draft of their Demo Day pitch.
- 4Wed · Jul 29Build with AI
Build It With AI
The big build day: kids direct their AI helper in plain English, one small change at a time, and assemble their very own playable game.
- 5Fri · Jul 31Ship & pitch
Demo Day 🎉
Put the game online with its own live link — then, like a startup's Demo Day, each kid takes the stage and pitches their shipped game. Families invited.
The days in between — keep building at your own speed
Because the camp runs across two weeks, there are days off between sessions. They're not homework — they're an open door. At the end of each session, every child sets their own next step for their own game, with the instructor. A kid who catches fire can keep building at home with the same AI helper and leap ahead; a kid who'd rather rest just comes back refreshed. Nobody sits idle, and everyone moves at their own speed.
Who's teaching
An Lu— the dad who built this. A Master's in Computer Science at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and research at Inria in France; then eight years building digital-payments infrastructure across Asia-Pacific — from zero to 14 markets. Today he designs, ships, and runs AI agents for companies through his own platform, Catalyst.
In short: someone who builds real software with AI every day — and who got into all of this because of games in the first place. Your child learns from a working builder, not a script.
Eight and fifteen in the same room? Yes.
Everyone follows the same hands-on labs — that's the shared floor — but the depth scales to each child, so nobody is bored or lost:
Drag sliders, predict-and-test, and build from friendly prompts.
Tweak real numbers and rules in the code, and write their own AI prompts.
Edit real code and direct the AI agent to add features and fix bugs.
Kids sit in buddies — each on their own machine and their own game — helping each other along the way. The AI helper lets every child move at their own pace.
The details
- Dates
- Jul 22, 24, 27, 29 & 31 (Wed / Fri / Mon / Wed / Fri)
- Time
- 1:00 – 5:30 pm daily · ~20 hours total
- Location
- Central Shanghai — exact venue confirmed on enrollment
- Ages
- 8 – 15 years
- Class size
- 10 children (small group)
- Tuition
- ¥15,000 per child · includes all materials
- Bring
- A laptop and curiosity — we provide the AI tools & setup
- Language
- Taught in English (English is part of the learning)
In an AI world, experience is the real education.
Today's education is built around skills and practice — drilling the things a person should be able to do. But AI is going to do those things better, and sooner than we think. Memorizing the steps is no longer the point.
What matters now is experience — doing something real. Experience is how a kid (and honestly, how any of us) comes to understand what AI is actually doing out in the world: feeling the process, feeling the impact of each decision inside a real domain, and from that judgment forming a view of what should be built and what shouldn't. You can't get that from a worksheet. You get it from making something and watching it meet reality.
And here's the catch: the bottleneck to experience is opportunity — a real chance to build something and test it on real people. That's the thing most kids never get.
This academy is meant to be that opportunity, simulated and safe. Kids learn, yes — but more importantly they build their own game and present it on Demo Day, YC-style, in front of a real audience. And who knows: maybe an "investor" in the room backs one of them to keep going beyond the camp.
I built this for my son and his future. I hope to share it with other kids — the ones who'll go on to build the future alongside him.
10 seats. One unforgettable summer.
The same summer I'm giving Rui — building something real, and learning the way the next generation will build everything. Scan the code below to reserve a seat.
Reserve or ask — add us on WeChat
Scan the QR code to add us on WeChat for enrollment. Send your child's name and age, and we'll confirm a seat and the details.