As Chris so eloquently put it in the previous post, I’ll be throwing up various thoughts and ramblings wot ‘ave to do with them things called games. These will mostly take the form of quasi-reviews (I say quasi because I don’t use those number things), [Ed Note - He is wise and follows my style, awesome!] and any particularly interesting thought I have on the format and/or games in particular. As such, my forays onto these hallowed pages shall be sporadic at best, and blessedly breif. I wouldn’t want you to grow too complacent. Edges of your seats you must sit!

So yes, I’ll probably put something up in the next day or two, as I’m long due a long exploratory piece about gaming. And as such, I shall flee now, to retreat to the comforting blankness of Microsoft Word 2007. It’s so pretty, with it’s blinking cursor and it’s white, white pages. Just waiting eagerly to be filled…..

This is intriguing I must say. The Game Wizard that they have on the site is very easy to use, it simply asks you some questions and gives you some options allowing you to create a game. It will be very simple but, well you have made a game!

Using the Game Creator, a tool you download is infinitely more complex…well it is for me at any rate! It seems like an actual game creation tool, rather than a simple Q&A = Game that happens with the Wizard. The Creator is Flash based, and doing stuff is pretty easy, I got a background and a ‘creature’ to be placed on this white background. They both came from the assets folder that comes free with the Game Creator download.

You can do lots of stuff like changing collision points, creating behaviours etc. but it all seems a bit ‘what?’ to me. There is no manual that comes with it, and the online help isn’t the easiest to get into and use. I am sure that if I had some better understanding of how the Creator worked I would be able to make something…decent out of it. As it is, all I managed to do was the following.

Good eh? Well not really! It sure looks fun though :P

I have seen some decent enough user-created games that have been made by other users already, nothing has caught my eye, but playing with a laptop mousepad isn’t really that conducive to good gaming.

I am sure that The Sims Carnival will continue to evolve and grow, if only they had included some video tutorials, or any kind of tutorial with the Game Creator and it would be much better in my mind. However, it is a beta so time will tell!

Back to the game wizard though for me…wish me luck my friends!