Game Maker

“Making games development accessible to everyone means taking away the barriers to getting started. Using our intuitive ‘Drag and Drop’ development environment you can have your game up and running in a matter of minutes without ever having to write any code! GameMaker’s built-in language (GML) helps you learn to program as you go and not jump in at the deep end of coding.”

1. Usability: How easy is the application to use for teachers? Students?
   • Game Maker is much more complicated than a program such as Scratch.  While Scratch is easy to understand and easy to use for any beginner, Game Maker is for more advanced users.  Game Maker is easy if you have the time to sit down for a few hours and learn it. For students in upper levels of High School and students in College, Gamemaker is perfect for creating any type of game, educational or not.
2. Motivation: What motivate teachers to use the app for teaching? Students for learning?
   • If a teacher is looking for something more in depth than what is found on Gamestar Mechanic or Scratch, and not quite as complicated as Unity, than Gamemaker is the program to use.  Being able to create a game that works on Mobile, Desktop, gaming systems such as Xbox and Playstation, all with a drag and drop interface is something that was unimaginable just a few years ago.
3. Pros

• Can be used as learning tool, or professional game development
• Very large game logic, can create a simple maze game to a networked first person shooter.
• Comes with own object oriented programming language.
• Games can be played on multi platform (Android, Linux, Windows, Mac, etc.)

4. Cons:

• Mainly used for creating non0-edtech  games
• Free version that’s limited, full features of Game Maker have a higher cost.
• Compared to Scratch and Gamestar Mechanic, Game Maker is not exactly “kid-friendly”

Scratch

“Scratch is designed especially for ages 8 to 16, but is used by people of all ages. Millions of people are creating Scratch projects in a wide variety of settings, including homes, schools, museums, libraries, and community centers.”

1. Usability: How easy is the application to use for teachers? Students?
   • Scratch was designed to be as easy as possible, and it shows.  While Scratch cannot produce games for various platforms, nor can it build complicatd console type games, you can easily create stories, games, and inimations to share with anyone.  Students of any age could jump into Scratch relatively easily and play or produce new content.
2. Motivation: What motivate teachers to use the app for teaching? Students for learning.
   • Scratch was designed and is still maintained with studetns and teachers in mind. It not onl is a vehicle to help tell stories or provide content, the use of Scratch also teaches basic programming.  Programming skills enhacne problem solving skills, project skills, and communication skill.s

4. Pros:

• Free
• User friendly layout
• Can easily create anything pretty much
• Great at teaching object oriented concepts!
• Good community
• Can be for anyone (kids, adults, real game developers, programmers etc)
• Can create games, videos, music, art, and a wide range of projects.

5. Cons

• Projects only come in Scratch format. (No executable, just Scratch format for now.)
• Very free
• Third party software can export to executable, but not that good