This article presents the results of a three-year study of "Gamestar Mechanic" (www.gamestarmechanic.com), a flash-based multiplayer online role-playing game developed for the MacArthur Foundation's digital media learning initiative by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Gamelab in New York. The game's objective is to help children adopt a designer mindset, together with its associated forms of language and literacy in the context of computer game production. Using case studies and discourse analysis, this article examines the ways in which learning "the language of games" provided by "Gamestar Mechanic" can help even young students learn thinking skills and communication important to learners in the twenty-first century, and can help transform the way children understand the games they play in positive ways. (Contains 11 figures.)