Tvůrci Army a DayZ učí děti programovat.
54 ǀ POSITIV 2/2026
BYZNYS
The Creators of Arma and DayZ
are Teaching Children to Code.
Their Plaorm Turns Gaming into Learning.
Bohemia Interacve, the world-famous game studio, is launching a new space game, Cosmo Tales,
as well as the educaonal plaorm Engu, which teaches children to create their own games rather
than simply playing them passively. Project lead Zdeněk Kvasnica explains why creavity cannot be
measured in a table and what digital creaon has in common with a sandcastle.
What convinced you that your know-how belongs
in schools as well, not only in the gaming world?
At Bohemia Interactive, we have been making games
for more than twenty years – from the Arma series
to DayZ and our latest projects. Over time, we realised
that the world we create for players also has enormous
potential as a space for learning. Games today are not
just entertainment – they can tell stories from history,
science and general human knowledge in a way that
traditional teaching can hardly replicate. It felt natural
to us to make full use of this potential and help students
take away more from gaming than just the experience
itself – ideally, a passion for creation, technology
or perhaps even a future career in the gaming industry.
When teachers or parents watch a child working
in Engu, what are they observing at that moment?
It depends on what the child is doing at the time. If they
are playing one of the prepared lessons – and we
have dozens of them across different subjects –
teachers and parents can observe how students move
through the game and whether they are taking away
what they were meant to. In addition, every lesson
comes with methodology for teachers. But the second
mode, which I personally find much more interesting,
is creating their own games. Here, almost nothing
can be measured, and that is actually the point. Every
output is different; every student shows their own
way of thinking, their own imagination, their own
logic. The role of the teacher or parent is then to talk
about that creation, to ask questions and to help
with the next step. Creativity simply cannot be
captured in the form of a table.
How can we tell that, thanks to Engu, a child has not
only “played”, but has actually learnt something?
With structured lessons, we can tell quite precisely,
because we can track how the child progressed
through the lesson, where they got stuck and what they
managed to complete. With creation, it is a different
discipline. It is not about the result, but about the process
– whether the child encountered a problem, looked
for a solution, tried things out and searched for a way
forward. The best sign that something is happening?
When the child comes over on their own and wants
to show what they have created. That is a better metric
than any test. In the future, we plan to implement
specific measurement tools into the platform that will
help with monitoring and evaluating both the learning
curve and competences.
Is there any signal that shows a child is ready
to create their own digital content?
The ideal starting age is around nine or ten – at that point,
children can usually work with a mouse and keyboard,
which is practically the only technical prerequisite.
Otherwise, we do not have a fixed age limit, and we
do not want one. Creation is natural for everyone – first
we play, then we build with blocks, make sandcastles
and, later, perhaps digital worlds. It is a continuum that
begins at birth. The signal of readiness? When a child
stops waiting for instructions and starts experimenting
on their own.
For me, the more interesng mode
is creang your own games. Each output
is dierent; every student shows their
thinking, imaginaon and logic.
| Text: Monika Ševčíková, foto: Bohemia Interacve