We need game design tools that work for everyone

Enlarge / With WarioWare DiY, people can easily create a game even if they are lazy. (credit: WarioWare DiY)

The following is an excerpt from the essay collection Offworld, which focuses on gaming and culture. Edited by Leigh Alexander and Laura Hudson, it's available from indie game publisher Campo Santo. Check it out if you'd like some fresh perspectives on gameplay and design.

In 2012, I wrote a book called Rise of the Videogame Zinesters, and in the back I listed all the accessible, no-programming-required game-making tools I could. Recently, I've been surveying the current landscape of similar tools. Spoiler: they all suck now.

Many of the tools I suggested as possible options for a budding game creator with no programming experience-Game Maker, Construct, Stencyl-have shifted toward marketing themselves as professional, commercial game-making tools for Capital I Indie, Capital D Developers. In today's market, that means accommodating touch screens and mobile games, and it also means filling every tool with so many options that I get overwhelmed and feel lost-and I've been making games for ten years. How would I teach these to someone who's never made a game before?

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