Episode Details

350: Learning Real-World Skills Through Game Creation with Matt Dalio of Endless Studios

In this episode, Meryl van der Merwe talks with Matt Dalio, founder of Endless Studios, about why game creation—not just game playing—can equip teens with powerful, real-world skills for future careers.

Matt shares:

His Backstory and Mission

• How early experiences living in China and working with orphans shaped his desire to create worldwide access to digital skills.

• Why technological literacy today is lower than literacy in the Dark Ages, and why that must change.

• His belief that millions of young people can gain job-ready technical skills through creating games.

Why Game Creation Matters

• Uses real professional tools such as Unity, Unreal, Godot, Blender, and GitHub.

• Teaches computational thinking, teamwork, project management, design, and coding.

• Mirrors real-world workflows used in startups and tech companies.

• Allows kids to shift from consumers to creators.

Tools Matt Recommends for Students

All of these are free to download:

1. EndStar
   Endless Studios’ tool built on Unity, designed to take students from Minecraft-level skills to professional-level game engine skills. It includes wiring systems, logic blocks, and gradual scaffolding into real scripting.

2. Godot
   An open-source engine that runs well on low-end computers. Endless Studios is building scaffolding tools on top of it, including block coding and collaborative editing features.

3. Roblox Studio
   Ideal for kids already using Roblox. Uses Lua scripting and has a large online community.

4. Scratch
   A simple entry-level environment that helps absolute beginners underst