Scratch is "games for kids." They are very prescriptive and have guides - you know, lesson plans - for everything they can teach. Either it supports Steam Deck or it doesn't.
If they're 14+ Unity is realistic and is the same thing the pros use.
I haven't tried Unreal Engine for Fortnite but if they play it, it is probably the best option.
Minecraft, Bloons and Terraria modding is also pretty good.
You can give them a GPT4 sub and it seems to do a good job answering basic computing questions if this is going to be their first time e.g. installing a professional tool.
Again, I know a lot of these tools. And I'm willing to get my kid a unity account. I'm not seeing a solid guide for them, at the moment. Which is a little surprising, as I do agree all of the parts are there.
They are already making scratch games. Would be amazingly fun for them to run a game on the deck just like any other game. Not in a browser, which is how most of those games are executed.
I'm not sure what the guide would really be about? Take Unity, export as a Linux standalone game, transfer to the Steam Deck and run it, literally double-click on the executable and it'll run just like on a Linux computer.
I'm guessing the lack of guides for this specific thing is because it's trivial to do.
Any risks with letting the kids install these directly on the Deck? My preference would be to only let them load the games there, but it is a very soft preference.
That... doesn't give me too much confidence, then. I have a habit of wiping my computers and rebuilding from scratch every year or so. I don't want that habit with the deck. :(
shrug your games are on the cloud, your saves are on the cloud even. If you keep good backups of your non-Steam stuff, all you lose is an afternoon with a flash drive and the SteamOS ISO.
If they're 14+ Unity is realistic and is the same thing the pros use.
I haven't tried Unreal Engine for Fortnite but if they play it, it is probably the best option.
Minecraft, Bloons and Terraria modding is also pretty good.
You can give them a GPT4 sub and it seems to do a good job answering basic computing questions if this is going to be their first time e.g. installing a professional tool.