> What are kids today using to do this kind of 'make my own tinkered games' stuff -- do they go straight to Unity, or still something like QBasic?
Python, with pygame, is the modern equivalent I think. It's relatively easy and straightforward for beginners, free, and very popular (lots of resources, tutorials, etc...).
https://www.pygame.org/news
For something more advanced but still python-ish, there's also Godot, which is a real engine and adds a visual IDE to game creation. Quite easy to install/setup too (everything comes in 1 file). Overall a very cool project.
https://godotengine.org/
Python, with pygame, is the modern equivalent I think. It's relatively easy and straightforward for beginners, free, and very popular (lots of resources, tutorials, etc...). https://www.pygame.org/news
For something more advanced but still python-ish, there's also Godot, which is a real engine and adds a visual IDE to game creation. Quite easy to install/setup too (everything comes in 1 file). Overall a very cool project. https://godotengine.org/