Perhaps, try to find out more about what the boy wants. Find out what kind of games he wants to make, and why. Does he want to learn programming in specific? Is he more interested in the graphics design elements? Does he just want to do "something cool" with computers? How much do the looks of the game matter to him? The gameplay design? What kind of games does he like to play?

There orders of magnitude difference between coding up, say, a simple text adventure, and developing a robust interactive movie.

It's harder for kids to make "something cool" these days, because the bar is a lot higher. When I was a kid, just making one coloured square chase another coloured square around was enough for a primitive game. I coded it in BASIC on my TRS-80 one afternoon, and it was vaguely amusing. Today, I doubt it would count as a "real game" to most kids. The average game they play today has several man/years of development time, and artists, musicians, and other trained specialist contributing. Making a custom version of "pong" may not cut it, these days.

On the other hand, if he's just in it for a programming excercise, any game will do. My sugestion is that you find out more about what the boy wants to learn, then teach it to him, using whatever language seems most suited to the application and to the boy.

Good luck!

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Ytrew Q. Uiop