We always hear parents say, “My kid plays too many video games.”
But we almost never hear: “My kid makes too many video games.”
That’s the shift we’re trying to spark.
Last weekend in North Beach, 20+ families joined us for a kids+parents AI game jam, with over 50 families on the waitlist. And in under two hours, kids created games that were funny, chaotic, inventive, and completely their own.
Not because they knew how to code or because they had prior experience.
But because kids have zero mental blockers around creation. They just describe what they want, try it, and iterate.
Exactly the way Rosebud was designed to work.
From Consumers to Creators 🎮
For years, tech has pushed kids toward using software instead of making it. They tap and swipe inside beautifully polished worlds built by someone else.
But when you hand a kid an AI game engine where ideas turn into playable experiences instantly, their instincts flip.
Kids don’t think “Is this possible?”
They think,“What should happen next?”
That difference changes everything.
What Kids Built in Under Two Hours 🐔🐒🐱
The creativity on display was amazing. Attendees built games like:
- A chicken being chased by foxes through a cartoon forest
- A monkey catching bananas falling from the sky
- A cat-led empire battling dogs in a kingdom made of floating islands
None of these came from a tutorial or were copied from YouTube.
They were pure, unfiltered imagination translated into playable games using AI.
A Low-Stakes Space to Learn Real Tech Skills 🌱
One of the beautiful surprises: kids picked up core tech concepts immediately, with no handholding whatsoever.
They learned:
- how game logic works
- how cause/effect changes gameplay
- how to iterate when something doesn’t work
- how art, sound, and mechanics fit together
But instead of feeling like school, it felt like storytelling and experimenting. That’s the best environment possible for early creativity: low stakes, high imagination, instant feedback.
Why AI Game Making Works for Education and Entertainment
This event validated something we’ve believed for a long time: AI is not a shortcut, but an unlock.
For kids: it removes technical friction, rewards creativity over precision, encourages rapid iteration, and makes learning feel like play
For parents: it transforms screen time into creative time, it reveals what kids can build when the tools get out of their way, and it shows that game creation can be collaborative and family-friendly
And for us: it confirmed that AI-native game creation has a huge role in future learning environments.
What’s Next? 🌹
We’re planning more family-friendly jams, creative workshops, and youth events with bigger venues, more mentors, more room for imagination to run wild.
If you don’t want to miss the next one:
👉 Subscribe to Rosebud’s Luma calendar (all future events will be posted there)
👉 Or start making your own game today at rosebud.ai
Kids don’t need permission to create. They just need tools that say, “Try it.”
Andi Bucescu
Andi is a marketer at Rosebud, where she writes about the intersection of AI, creativity, and brand storytelling. She explores how generative AI is reshaping marketing strategies and creative workflows, with a focus on making complex technology accessible and cutting through the noise of modern campaigns. Her perspective is informed by undergraduate research on effective social media content and consumer psychology.