Review: GAME BUILDER GARAGE is a Great Tool to Jump Start a Joy of Creating
A couple of weeks ago, Nintendo released Game Builder Garage. This is supposed to be a game that helps individuals learn how to make games using handy helpers called Nodons. There are guided lessons to help you learn the basics and then you can always just let loose and let your imagination go wild. Then, you can upload the games you make and share them with your friends. Nintendo was kind enough to provide me with a code to check it out and my thoughts are below.
Discover the building blocks of game design and programming with fun step-by-step lessons anyone can follow, developed by the creative minds at Nintendo. Learn what it takes to make a game character do basic tasks like running and jumping, then graduate to bigger tasks like programming an opponent to race against, or even creating a puzzle to be solved! The best part is, no experience is needed. You can dive in and start learning today.
As I mentioned before, Game Builder Garage is a way to help people understand the basics of coding and game development. Instead of writing code though, you connect and use Nodons to program everything. You can use your Joy-Con, the touch screen, or even a USB mouse to program your games. I wish that they would also allow a USB keyboard for text items, but alas, that function is not available.
I’ve gone through and created a couple of brief and simple games and overall, it was fun. The tutorials walk you through all the steps very thoroughly and then quiz you on different aspects before you can do the next one. It helps you remember different aspects. One of the best parts though is the final step of the tutorial where you get to personalize the game in some way. You can change the colors of items, add textures you draw, change and customize the music, and more.
One of my few complaints is that You can create textures to personalize your game objects (like make a UFO look like a floating head), but you have to draw the texture and it’s just not the easiest to do on the Switch. It’s a very small gripe since a good portion of that has to do with my lack of skill as an artist, but I hope you have a good stylus that works on the Switch if you want to do a lot with the custom textures.
Game Builder Garage isn’t really a game, rather a tool. It has a lot of potential for the creative people who take to games like Super Mario Maker and can create amazing things. The tools available in Game Builder Garage are great for teaching fundamentals. If you know how to code and make games, this might feel trivial. If you’ve never done any kind of programming, I can definitely see this being a tool to get you into game development. The graphical interface is really inviting and easy to use. Just remember that you probably won’t be creating the next The Legend of Zelda or Metroid in Game Builder Garage. The price is also fantastic at only $30.
