How is a game made? Let us look at the team and the tools. Game studios rely on teams of people to make games. The teams have designers, programmers and artists. A modern game is a job for people working together.

Let us meet the team. Game designers plan how a game is played. Programmers do the technical work that makes a game's ideas work. Writers help make a game's story and characters. Artists make the pictures in a game.

Animators make the characters and objects in a game move. A game has sound effects and music too. People on the team work on them. Game testers check the game for bugs and other problems while it is made.

Next, how does a team know an idea is good? A prototype is a simple early try at a game. A team builds one to see if an idea works. Designers have people play a game. Then they use what they learn to change it.

Teams also need tools to build a game. A game engine is a software platform. It has the tools a team uses to build a game. Games are played on many kinds of machines, such as computers, game consoles and phones.

Now let us look at an early game. Atari put out Pong in 1972. An Atari engineer named Allan Alcorn built it. His boss had asked for a simple game based on Ping-Pong. Pong was a simple game with two paddles and a ball.

The first Pong machine was in a bar in Sunnyvale, California. It stopped working because it was full of quarters. Atari later sold a home version of Pong through Sears, a big store chain. Easy coding tools let kids and other beginners make their own games.

Words to know

• prototype: early version
• engine: building tools
• animators: movement makers
• testers: game checkers