When I was 5, my dad bought me a Commodore 64. Back in the day, a disk drive cost a ridiculous amount, and so the easiest way to play games was these books they sold that would just list out the program. They didn't teach you to code, they just listed the program and you typed it out, typed "RUN," played the game, and when you turned your computer off, everything was lost and you had to do it all over again next time. I started with those, and then I changed things around until I figured out what they did. By the time I was 7 I had taught myself to make text adventures and other small games completely from scratch. That was in 1987. I never stopped making games.