I worked as a software engineer for four years and, despite knowing how to program at least moderately competently, I have never ever finished a game. And I’ve tried. BOY have I tried. It’s just really, really hard to stay focused. You get excited writing all the fun parts of the game then you get bogged down in the boring details and wander off to do anything even vaguely more interesting. Knowing that this is something I am apparently fundamentally incapable of doing makes this yarn equally as adorable as it is shameful to me but here it is: a game made by a seven-year-old is currently carving it up on the Steam charts.
[jwplayer ufxzSg8Y]
Answer the Question, made by Penny McDonald (again, seven years old), was this afternoon hovering around number four on the list of most positively reviewed games on the platform this week:
Oh my god. 7 year old girl, Penny (who I have met!! go Penny!!!!), published a game SHE MADE on Steam this week and it is in the top 4 most positively reviewed games this week. Maybe we CAN have nice things after all! https://t.co/5dvqSIaDdR pic.twitter.com/JLyiPW3ZOp
— Alanah Pearce (@Charalanahzard) August 7, 2018
The game, uploaded at the start of the month, allows you to answer maths questions. In Penny’s own words:
This game is called answer the question you get infinite questions its a game about math. If you are studying and want to play a game choose this one this game has addition so start playing and get smart!
As an incredibly not-that-smart person, I cannot begin to tell you how useful it would be to me to finally get smart.
The game was put on the Steam store with the assistance of her father, Lance, an Australian game developer, but he is quite confident it’s all her work (this will make a lot of sense if you are a huge nerd):
hahaha I promise if I had made this myself, it would not be using GOTOs and the INPUT$ keyboard handler! Seemed like a good way to get her started, though.
— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) August 7, 2018
In an interview with Kotaku, her dad said that the game was initially knocked back by Steam, which required the game to have a logo that showed the name of the game more clearly, which Penny definitely delivered on:
Source: Penny McDonald.
Hell yeah, Penny.
The game currently has a 96% rating with 102 reviews, which is pretty rad. You can get the game here, if you’re so inclined.
