SEGUIN, Texas – A lot of kids call themselves gamers, but Charlie Caton, 11, a student at Navarro Intermediate School in Seguin, takes that one step further.
The fifth-grader created his own three-dimensional video game, which recently took second place at a national competition.
The game, Mythical Hero, is a first-person shooter game based on Greek mythology, and Charlie designed every aspect of it through computer coding.
"It's fun. You get to test your own game, and play other people's video games sometimes," Charlie said.
Sharon Birdsong, the teacher of Charlie's Gifted and Talented class, has been teaching her students computer coding, and said Charlie is so good at coding, that she encouraged him to enter the "Got Game?" competition.
"One of the neat things about the competition, is it was national," Birdsong said. "There were over 150 participants. For him to jump in and become No. 2 out of that, was really a big deal."
After placing second in the contest, Charlie says he's got even bigger plans on the horizon, and hopes to someday create games professionally.
"I'm going to start working on a new game pretty soon, like probably this weekend, which I will try and publish by my next birthday," Charlie said.
In addition to bragging rights, Charlie also won a $200 Best Buy gift card and learning materials for his class.