THIS MONTH
THIS MONTH ON EDGE
When we weren’t doing everything else, we were thinking about stuff like this
SOFTWARE
Game Builder Garage
bit.ly/gamebuildergarage
The premise alone is exciting: who better to teach lessons in game-making than Nintendo? Game Builder Garage offers a series of playful lessons built around an intuitive visual programming language: you’ll create seven very different games (from a straightforward game of tag to a side-scrolling shoot-’em-up and eventually a 3D platformer) by placing anthropomorphic nodes representing a variety of game elements and connecting them with wires. The ability to flip between the game screen and its behind-the-curtain workings provides instantly tangible results of your tinkering, though its approach to problem-solving can be surprisingly exacting. It’s nowhere near as flexible asDreams, of course, but as a cheerfully accessible way to grasp the basics of game creation, this is hard to beat.