Game building
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010I coming to the conclusion that ‘learners as game builders’ is a better model for game-based learning that ‘learners as game consumers’, and a couple of cool game-building tools have recently come to my attention.
The first is Game Maker. It’s a free (or $25 for the Pro version) development kit designed for making all sorts of games. I’ve not had as long as I’d have liked to play with it but it seems pretty intuitive, easy to get starter, and you don’t need a programming background (though I’m sure it helps). I can also recommend Jake Habgood’s The Game Maker’s Apprentice as a good starting point.
The second is the VASSAL Game Engine (thanks to Ian Smith for pointing this out to me), a free game development tool for building online adaptations of board and card games. I haven’t played with it yet (recognising a huge potential time sink when I see one) but I like the look of it.