Coding game for 8 and 5 year old.

[TimeForMy10thCuppa]

We always get the DC a game at Christmas. This year I was thinking of a maybe a coding game. Dd5 has been using the little robot at school and DS8 has used it previously. Both thought it was great fun. I saw the coding critters one ( I think that's what it's called) but didn't know if it would be too young for ds.
Does anyone have any ideas please?

ThinkFun Robot Turtles would be about the right age and isn’t mega expensive.

The Little Big Planet game is really good and very very fun. It’s an adventure game with coding thrown in to solve puzzles. Once the players get good, they can design and create their own levels...as in code their own game. The entire game has this “play, create, share” approach that has kids doing game design.
They have the original, and 2 through 4 that get more complex and fun as you go. The characters are sock puppets that you can customise to create your own hero or heroine.

For engineering a great game is bad piggies. It is by the angry birds people. What you have to do is build a contraption to safely get a load of piggies from one end to the other. This involves jets, wheels, brakes, vehicle safety features, etc and learning about gravity, momentum and how much damage a piggie can take.

Little Big Planet 2 trailer
m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs0T5l24JL0

Bad piggies video trailer
m.youtube.com/watch?v=YsCpDaSooWA

Thank you. Will have a proper look I to them. The trailers look fab.

Just a plug from my perspective.
One of my daughters was playing these games the same age as your DC and she became an official beta tester for software for well known companies at age 12. She’s still doing that & more now while in high school. She wants a career in robotics and is being told she is Cambridge University level so may actually be studying in U.K. in a few years.

Quirky Circuits (if it ever gets released!).

Turing Tumble.