NEVER TOO YOUNG
15-year-old Ben Peel is about to launch his first game on Steam, having started his dev journey at the ripe old age of nine. Matt Broughton felt very old as he caught up with this impressive young talent…
Tell us a bit about yourself. My name is Ben Peel. I’m a 15-year-old from the UK and I’ve spent the past six years learning and developing my own games. I’m excited to announce my first game release on Steam - called Squavity - after a year and a half of commitment and hard work, is almost ready to launch.
collect gold bars, which are hidden throughout levels. My favourite skins are the alien, robot and the secret character (which you get for collecting all gold bars). There is an epic, rage-inducing final boss fight at the end of the game where players must put all of their skills to the test. My favourite level is the moon level, which includes teleporters and has the player in low gravity, dodging turrets and asteroids.
What was the original inspiration for Squavity? The ideas for the unique parts of the game came slowly to me as I developed it. For example, the main gravity flip mechanic was not originally intended, but as the game got bigger, I made it the main feature and built the levels around it.
How long have you been developing games and how did you start? I started my game dev journey at nine years old using “Game Creator”, a £2.69 app on the Google Play Store. It was very basic, but I learnt how to come up with creative ideas and turn those into fun, playable games. After a couple of years perfecting my skills on that, I decided it was time to progress and found an easy-to-learn game engine called “Core” at the age of 11. Core really helped me learn more about game editors and the problem-solving side of game developing, whilst also allowing me to develop games with no coding skills required. I uploaded my first game there in 2021 called “Kyle”. I finally learnt how to code when I discovered unity at 13 years old. With the help of AI and YouTube, I quickly learnt the basics of programming. And now, after another year and a half of testing, learning and debugging, I’ve finished my first proper game called “Squavity”.
Tell us more about Squavity… Squavity is a precision platformer which I have given a vibrant art style. Players flip gravity to get through all nine levels and avoid various hazards – I’ve added including fire, electricity, explosions and a cool underwater level that has shooting torpedoes. There are multiple skins players can select. To unlock them you
22 | MCV/DEVELOP July/August 2026
Has the game always been as it appears/plays now or is it many iterations down the line? Squavity has been through a lot of trial and error and looked very different when it started out. My first ideas for Squavity were for it to be a normal platformer-style game with a colourful art style. But then as the game progressed and got bigger, while I kept the art style, I pivoted to a gravity flipping, rage-inducing platformer with unique traps and levels that keep things interesting as you progress.
How have you coded this? After months of using AI and watching YouTube videos, I slowly started understanding how to code in C# on visual studio. It was quite hard to wrap my head around at first, but I found that I could eventually program most of what I wanted using my own code. Then, as I got better, I went back through my old, inefficient code and improved it.
What are you hoping to do in your own future? In the future, I hope to work on big game projects and help make awesome games with AAA studios. But in the meantime, I’m really enjoying creating them by myself.
Do you have any other projects in the pipeline? I’m too busy with Squavity to consider my next project just yet as I am entirely focused on getting the steam release out for people to play.
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