Greetings folks! it's been a minute but what a month!
This update isn’t about a new mechanic, nor a grant update, or some leader board tweak or a physics overhaul. It’s about people. Specifically students, and more specifically students with Additional Learning Needs (ALN).

Over the past month, I’ve had the privilege of running game development workshops in secondary schools and colleges with students of mix levels and abilities. The sessions we're vibrant, hands on, and facilitated opportunities for the groups I taught to make games along with me. What I didn’t expect from the sessions was for me to learn quite this much from the groups in my care.

There's a misconception that surrounds people with additional learning needs, at least in the mainstream. My approach was present broad stroke concepts around game loops, level design, progression alongside my own journey into branding, web development and eventually games. In preparation for some of the sessions I was told that:

“Some of our ALN students might struggle to stay focused.”

A fair concern. Game development has moving parts. Coding can feel abstract, workshops can drift and attention spans falter if the engagement ebb and flow doesn't meet the needs of the group. But what happened surprised everyone.

Engagement didn’t drop, it increased. The questions cam thick and fast, observations and errors in the code presented were highlighted in record time, mastery was a breeze for some. That focus, didn’t disappear, it stayed. When we shifted from passive listening to hands-on building, something clicked in everyone, and the flexibility of the tools began to shine.

There’s a huge difference between talking about how games are made, and letting someone make one. When we opened up Scratch, something wonderful happened.

Instead of intimidating lines of syntax, students saw:

• Easily identifiable coloured blocks

• Logical flows and visual cues

• Cause and effect

• Visible pieces snapping together

A jump mechanic wasn’t abstract code, it was something they could drag, break, test, and fix in real time. For students who struggle with abstract instruction, visibility changes everything. Game logic and fixing a bug becomes a puzzle to solve, not a lecture. When you gamify making games, a new world opens up to the user I'd never experienced before. If you’re a parent wondering whether games can actually support focus, confidence, or problem-solving — this is where it becomes interesting. When children are building rather than consuming media, the shift is dramatic. Ownership changes attention in the task. Creation truly builds resilience. That trial and error, the fail often fail fast mindset, really does support a shift in pupils understanding, determination and focus to see a task to its completion. Games are good for helping support mental health and learning.

As confidence grew in Scratch over a few weeks, we transitioned into Unity.

We explored basic movement logic, triggers and collisions, simple win conditions, timers, object interaction and states. What stood out for me wasn’t technical ability and knowledge gained, it was the immersion, collaborative nature of problem solving for themselves and others. If ever there was a conversation starter, it's presenting a group of students with an incomplete piece of code to debug and problem solve. It's magical to experience a classroom of students who rarely converse outside of class, help each other achieve a common goal or a working game. Magical.

Students who were expected to drift off were:

• Deep in problem-solving loops

• Testing, failing, retrying

• Debugging together

• Suggesting improvements

• Having fun

The act of building created focus, collaboration and a sense of joy.

And that’s a lesson we should all remember. Games are fun to play, but making games, also brings people together... I mean Roblox saw this opportunity to monetise creation, and are now a dominant platform for tweens in the creator economy space.

Here’s the part that matters most for Hangry Animals. When you build games with students & players rather than for them, patterns emerge. You see where pace feels overwhelming, where your instructions or game objectives feel confusing, or your control mechanics are overwhelming, or the juice (fun factor) doesn't resonate as well as you thought it would. Without this clear and honest feedback, we'd be building blindly.

ALN students, in particular, exposed some important fundamentals:

Making a game that is clear what the aims of the game are.
Controls that are accessible, snappy, not complex combinations.
Balanced cognitive load (pace of game and feel) works for our audience

We showcased early prototypes of our delivery game during the sessions as a reward for milestone achievements in their own game builds. The students feedback, our observations of players experiences, even for 15 minutes has provided great insight and has real implications for Nom Nom Express and every game we shape into the future.

Some may see accessibility in gaming as something you bolt on later, in reality, accessibility forces better design. Clear UI. Readable feedback. Adjustable pacing. Layered difficulty that matches players abilities. Intuitive mechanics and controls. Prince of Persia on Mobile is a fantastic example of a game that fully embraces accessibility features in the right way. From sounds, cognitive load balancers, controls are all configurable for the users needs and abilities. A fantastic job all round.

When you design for humans, you create a better experiences. Players thrive when the design supports their actions.

These workshops aren’t just educational outreach, or a gimmick to gain an audience. They are an opportunity to share experiences with others, share the joy of making games. It's where live idea validation comes to life. Where testing new mechanics and emotional insights can truly reveal a gem of an idea, directly from the audiences we are building for. Before committing to expensive production cycles and asset pipelines, we can test:

• Delivery mechanics

• Reward loops

• UI layouts

• Difficulty curves

• Control responsiveness

All in environments where opinions have no filter. Students are gamers with a world of experience to share, and that kind of grounded feedback shapes better products. And better products shape stronger foundations for building games of the future.

As we move toward to the next phase of Hangry Animals, including conversations that will expand our reach and accelerate development, these insights are super valuable to our evolution into games and a platform for good causes.

Game Development update from early Feb 2026 for you to check in on what we're building and Hangry Animals HQ.

Scratch as a learning tool tells us something important; Game development doesn’t have to be and elitist pursuit of AAA perfection. It doesn’t have to be a massive steep learning curve to grasp game loop concepts. It doesn’t require a £4,000 laptop to spark creativity, and own the massive library of assets to build something cool.

It can start with Lego style coloured blocks and a healthy dose pf curiosity.
Build With joy. That mirrors our philosophy at Hangry Animals.

These workshops will remain part of our rhythm.

They keep us grounded.
They keep us honest.
They remind us that “fun” isn’t about complexity — it’s about clarity and connection.

If students with Additional Learning Needs can become immersed in building small games in under an hour, that tells us something important about our industry.

The future of gaming belongs to those who make it accessible, playful, and inclusive.

Until next time —

Stay curious.
Stay creative.
Stay Hangry.

Andy & Ceri

The Hangry Animals Team
www.hangryanimals.com

👋 Just joined us? 

You can rummage through every past issue on our newsletter homepage in Paragraph.
No paywall, no spam, just pure Hangry.

👍 Got questions or reflections?
Pop them into the #ideas-vault on Discord or email us at hello@hangryanimals.com. 

👉Still want more?

Click here to explore our social channels

Greetings folks! it's been a minute but what a month!
This update isn’t about a new mechanic, nor a grant update, or some leader board tweak or a physics overhaul. It’s about people. Specifically students, and more specifically students with Additional Learning Needs (ALN).

Over the past month, I’ve had the privilege of running game development workshops in secondary schools and colleges with students of mix levels and abilities. The sessions we're vibrant, hands on, and facilitated opportunities for the groups I taught to make games along with me. What I didn’t expect from the sessions was for me to learn quite this much from the groups in my care.

There's a misconception that surrounds people with additional learning needs, at least in the mainstream. My approach was present broad stroke concepts around game loops, level design, progression alongside my own journey into branding, web development and eventually games. In preparation for some of the sessions I was told that:

“Some of our ALN students might struggle to stay focused.”

A fair concern. Game development has moving parts. Coding can feel abstract, workshops can drift and attention spans falter if the engagement ebb and flow doesn't meet the needs of the group. But what happened surprised everyone.

Engagement didn’t drop, it increased. The questions cam thick and fast, observations and errors in the code presented were highlighted in record time, mastery was a breeze for some. That focus, didn’t disappear, it stayed. When we shifted from passive listening to hands-on building, something clicked in everyone, and the flexibility of the tools began to shine.

There’s a huge difference between talking about how games are made, and letting someone make one. When we opened up Scratch, something wonderful happened.

Instead of intimidating lines of syntax, students saw:

• Easily identifiable coloured blocks

• Logical flows and visual cues

• Cause and effect

• Visible pieces snapping together

A jump mechanic wasn’t abstract code, it was something they could drag, break, test, and fix in real time. For students who struggle with abstract instruction, visibility changes everything. Game logic and fixing a bug becomes a puzzle to solve, not a lecture. When you gamify making games, a new world opens up to the user I'd never experienced before. If you’re a parent wondering whether games can actually support focus, confidence, or problem-solving — this is where it becomes interesting. When children are building rather than consuming media, the shift is dramatic. Ownership changes attention in the task. Creation truly builds resilience. That trial and error, the fail often fail fast mindset, really does support a shift in pupils understanding, determination and focus to see a task to its completion. Games are good for helping support mental health and learning.

As confidence grew in Scratch over a few weeks, we transitioned into Unity.

We explored basic movement logic, triggers and collisions, simple win conditions, timers, object interaction and states. What stood out for me wasn’t technical ability and knowledge gained, it was the immersion, collaborative nature of problem solving for themselves and others. If ever there was a conversation starter, it's presenting a group of students with an incomplete piece of code to debug and problem solve. It's magical to experience a classroom of students who rarely converse outside of class, help each other achieve a common goal or a working game. Magical.

Students who were expected to drift off were:

• Deep in problem-solving loops

• Testing, failing, retrying

• Debugging together

• Suggesting improvements

• Having fun

The act of building created focus, collaboration and a sense of joy.

And that’s a lesson we should all remember. Games are fun to play, but making games, also brings people together... I mean Roblox saw this opportunity to monetise creation, and are now a dominant platform for tweens in the creator economy space.

Here’s the part that matters most for Hangry Animals. When you build games with students & players rather than for them, patterns emerge. You see where pace feels overwhelming, where your instructions or game objectives feel confusing, or your control mechanics are overwhelming, or the juice (fun factor) doesn't resonate as well as you thought it would. Without this clear and honest feedback, we'd be building blindly.

ALN students, in particular, exposed some important fundamentals:

Making a game that is clear what the aims of the game are.
Controls that are accessible, snappy, not complex combinations.
Balanced cognitive load (pace of game and feel) works for our audience

We showcased early prototypes of our delivery game during the sessions as a reward for milestone achievements in their own game builds. The students feedback, our observations of players experiences, even for 15 minutes has provided great insight and has real implications for Nom Nom Express and every game we shape into the future.

Some may see accessibility in gaming as something you bolt on later, in reality, accessibility forces better design. Clear UI. Readable feedback. Adjustable pacing. Layered difficulty that matches players abilities. Intuitive mechanics and controls. Prince of Persia on Mobile is a fantastic example of a game that fully embraces accessibility features in the right way. From sounds, cognitive load balancers, controls are all configurable for the users needs and abilities. A fantastic job all round.

When you design for humans, you create a better experiences. Players thrive when the design supports their actions.

These workshops aren’t just educational outreach, or a gimmick to gain an audience. They are an opportunity to share experiences with others, share the joy of making games. It's where live idea validation comes to life. Where testing new mechanics and emotional insights can truly reveal a gem of an idea, directly from the audiences we are building for. Before committing to expensive production cycles and asset pipelines, we can test:

• Delivery mechanics

• Reward loops

• UI layouts

• Difficulty curves

• Control responsiveness

All in environments where opinions have no filter. Students are gamers with a world of experience to share, and that kind of grounded feedback shapes better products. And better products shape stronger foundations for building games of the future.

As we move toward to the next phase of Hangry Animals, including conversations that will expand our reach and accelerate development, these insights are super valuable to our evolution into games and a platform for good causes.

Game Development update from early Feb 2026 for you to check in on what we're building and Hangry Animals HQ.

Scratch as a learning tool tells us something important; Game development doesn’t have to be and elitist pursuit of AAA perfection. It doesn’t have to be a massive steep learning curve to grasp game loop concepts. It doesn’t require a £4,000 laptop to spark creativity, and own the massive library of assets to build something cool.

It can start with Lego style coloured blocks and a healthy dose pf curiosity.
Build With joy. That mirrors our philosophy at Hangry Animals.

These workshops will remain part of our rhythm.

They keep us grounded.
They keep us honest.
They remind us that “fun” isn’t about complexity — it’s about clarity and connection.

If students with Additional Learning Needs can become immersed in building small games in under an hour, that tells us something important about our industry.

The future of gaming belongs to those who make it accessible, playful, and inclusive.

Until next time —

Stay curious.
Stay creative.
Stay Hangry.

Andy & Ceri

The Hangry Animals Team
www.hangryanimals.com

👋 Just joined us? 

You can rummage through every past issue on our newsletter homepage in Paragraph.
No paywall, no spam, just pure Hangry.

👍 Got questions or reflections?
Pop them into the #ideas-vault on Discord or email us at hello@hangryanimals.com. 

👉Still want more?

Click here to explore our social channels