We want to take code from kids that we parse into python and have a program we make add the more complicated stuff to be run by blender. The kids won’t ever see the blender app, just our text input program. They will hit “go” and our program will turn their’s into a full blender game.
So we need to completely make the scene code and the game engine code and have blender run it. Does blender have enough concrete python support for us to justify using blender?
That’s really a cool idea, I think the kids will love it. As for your question, yes it can be done for the scene and game logic. Python is extremely powerful as is Blender, there are even scientists using the Blender game engine for virtual experiments and physics simulations. I would suggest looking into the Blender game logic API. Some games can also be made using the logic bricks, which a very simple way to learn programming in a visual way. The BGE uses python 3 which communicate with the API which is C based.
You could try Blender’s Game Engine beginners guide by Victor Kulle Bacon from packt publishing, it teaches how to make a complete game using the logic bricks, no programming required.Once the kids can understand the logic of sending instructions to the computer, they can start moving onto python.
Additionally you could also look into pygame or kivy which both uses python. Kivy is mainly focused on mobile app development, but can also make games. Another alternative is Godot, which has a scripting language based on Python syntax.