- A Little History About Me and Game Design
- Different Types of Game Design Apps on Nintendo Switch
- What Useful Advice Do You Have For Me If I Want to Do This?
- Guide to Playing User-Created Games on Game Design Apps
A Little History About Me and Game Design
I remember when I was a youngster, the idea of being able to design my own videogames seemed almost magical. I already loved videogames, and the idea of not just playing the works of others but creating my own seemed like a dream.
At an early age, I had access to a Commodore 64 computer (yes, I come from the age of the dinosaurs), and was thrilled to discover that it would let me write programs in the Basic programming language right at the startup. At the time, I dabbled in making a text-based “Choose Your Own Adventure”-style game, a more primitive version of today’s Visual Novels. I even Jerry-rigged my own Space Invaders-style game using text for the graphics.
As I got older, I took some simple classes in game design and that’s when I discovered… wow, actual serious game design is hard. It’s one thing when you’re using simple “IF/THEN” and “GOTO” commands, but another when you’re managing the complex algorithms and instructions needed for more significant work. When seeing how truly difficult it was, I bombed out of that course, hard. And while I still had a passion for the ideas behind game design, and a basic understanding… actually creating something in that world was something I felt was just beyond me.
Of course, game companies like Nintendo would take note of both this desire in many of their gamers to create their own games, as well as the reality of the extremely difficult nature of actually doing so. As such, some of these companies have tried to create game design software that could bridge that gap, being easier for players to understand so they can at least in a limited fashion live out that dream of creating their own game. However, many of these releases have taken different approaches to this.
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Different Types of Game Design Apps on Nintendo Switch
If you’re looking to create your own game experiences on Nintendo Switch, there are a few things you should know going in. Firstly, none of what I’m going to be discussing here is talking about the creation of actual retail games for Nintendo Switch. If you’re looking to create a game to release on Nintendo Switch’s eShop next to Nintendo’s own games, you’re better off looking into design using various programming languages and tools available on the PC – I don’t think there’s any design software on the Nintendo Switch for making retail releases on the Nintendo Switch. Rather, you’ll be looking into programs like Unity… I think. I’ll be honest, this is not an area of expertise for me.
If you’re truly new to game design, you may want to start with level editors rather than full-fledged game design software. Super Mario Maker 2, Ultimate Chicken Horse, N++, and BlockQuest Maker all offering decent level-building tools, as well as having plentiful options for sharing your creations. I will also note that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate also includes a very good stage builder that lets you create some really elaborate stages for that game. Then of course there are games like Dragon Quest Builders 2 and Minecraft. Terarria also, to some extent.
A step up from there would be Wargroove, which allows players to create and share not only their own custom maps, but entire custom campaigns.
However, if you’re not looking to create content for an already-existing game, and want to create your own game on Nintendo Switch, the next step up in difficulty is at least in theory going to be games with simplified game design tools with a visual interface. Bear in mind that just because I said “simplified”, this does not mean they will make the process of designing a game simple – you will still have to learn a lot of the logic behind how game design works to make use of these tools, even if you don’t necessarily need to write code for them. RPG Maker MV does this specifically just for RPGs, and PlataGo! does this for Platformers… although I would argue that RPG Maker MV has a very steep learning curve, and PlataGo! just isn’t very good.
The next step up from there are more general tools that still use a visual interface, but now allow for a broad range of game design. Again, still relatively simple compared to an actual fully-fledged programming language, but still highly complex to do anything particularly involved. Examples of this can be found in the Nintendo Labo’s “Garage” mode (the most evolved version being in Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 03: Vehicle Kit and Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 04: VR Kit), and the successor to this Garage mode, Game Builder Garage. These programs simplify game design by making all of the different components and instructions into objects that can be moved around and connected to one another. However, it bears mention that while the Nintendo LABO’s Garage application makes for some fun possibilities to play around with the Nintendo Switch’s unique features, these applications do not include any way to share your creations with others, nor any way to play other creators’ works. Game Builder Garage does include a way to do so, but you have to find a download code for the game you want to play – there’s no built-in search function.
While Game Builder Garage and its predecessors provide a wealth of options to budding designers, they are still ultimately limited in their scope, and many of the design ideas you may have simply won’t be possible in those applications. If you’re truly looking for freedom, you may want to try an actual programming language… but that freedom comes with a price, and the price is a huge leap in complexity. For game design using these applications, you’ll actually need to learn how to write code, and while these applications are designed to make that process easier and more accessible, you’re still talking about an absolutely massive undertaking, akin to learning a second language and then writing a complex instruction manual in that language.
For those who are interested in doing that, and specifically doing it on Nintendo Switch, there is SmileBasic 4 and Fuze4. Between the two, I think SmileBasic 4 is more user-friendly, less buggy, and probably easier to learn and use. Fuze4, meanwhile, seems like it’s more capable when it comes to designing 3D games, although both have some limited 3D capabilities, and both are not likely to produce anything that looks even remotely as visually-impressive as games designed on software like Unity. Keep in mind, if you’re looking to go this route, you’ll want to have a USB keyboard connected to your Nintendo Switch in docked mode, because you will be typing a lot, and you will absolutely not want to do that using a gamepad.
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What Useful Advice Do You Have For Me If I Want to Do This?
Firstly, if you’re not sure where to start, start at the top of the above list with the easier stuff and work your way down (though in terms of difficulty, I’d place RPG Maker MV below Game Builder Garage). The level design stuff at the top like Super Mario Maker 2 are good at getting you to think like a designer without having to necessarily understand the mechanics of how a game works. Genre-specific game design tools like PlataGo! start to get you thinking about some of the elements that go into a game’s design, as well as the logic of how games work. Simple visual tools like Game Builder Garage will provide you with a fully-fledged but simplified game design experience without having to learn how to write code. And then simple game programming languages like SmileBasic 4 will let you do more, but require you to learn how to write the code to do what you’re trying to do.
In your learning process, you’ll want to make use of whatever tutorials are available in the games in question, make it a habit to search for answers about how to do things in Google, and find dedicated forums and wikis for the application in question to look up things you’re not sure how to do. Make it a point to take notes about how the game design application works, and write down important commands or tools you feel you’ll want to use. If you’re planning to do any visual design (like drawing characters for your game or designing the layout of a level), you may want to get some graph paper to sketch out what you’re looking to create.
Also, nearly every one of the applications named above (save for the Nintendo Labo games) allows its users to download the creations of other players, with many of those applications allowing players to take at peek at how they were made. Make good use of this to study how others designed things and learn from them – many of them will likely come up with good solutions you hadn’t considered.
On that note, if you’re designing game content using any of these applications, do not be surprised or dismayed if you upload your work and someone else copies it. I am not a lawyer so I cannot say conclusively, but I’m not sure how much you can claim to “own” any of this, and if you’re really wanting to protect your creation and not have it “stolen” by others, the only way to do so for sure is to not share it… at least not until you can actually find a publisher to release it as a fully-fledged product. But suffice it to say, if you’re designing it using a Nintendo Switch application, I’ve already said that is not likely to happen – if you’re wanting to profit off of your game design, look into actual full-fledged programming languages on the PC.
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Guide to Playing User-Created Games on Game Design Apps
Perhaps you’re just wondering, “What if I just want to use these applications to download content made by others?”
That is certainly an option open to you!
However, at that point, you’ll undoubtedly wonder a few things: What sort of games will I be able to play on each of these and just how good are they? How easy is it to find and download the games? How many games are there available? I’ll try to answer that here as best I can for each of the applications I named above, with ratings for number of games, average quality (based on what I played), variety, and search-ability, along with the date I last checked them (if I update this in the future).
If you want to look at what I thought about a sampling of the games on these apps, you can find those opinions collected here!
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BlockQuest Maker
BlockQuest Maker is largely about top-down character-based Puzzle gameplay, with some light Action-RPGs thrown in. As such, this is the sort of levels you’ll find here.
Number of Games Levels: Unknown (I stopped counting after around 850)
Average Quality: C
Variety: C-
Search-ability: B-
Date Last Checked: 2/3/2022
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Dragon Quest Builders 2
I have not yet had the chance to sample the shared content on this platform.
Number of Games Levels: N/A
Average Quality: N/A
Variety: N/A
Search-ability: N/A
Date Last Checked: N/A
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Fuze4
Fuze4’s game designers have focused largely on small, arcade-style games, with many of the offerings on Fuze Arena being a “proof of concept” rather than an actual complete game. If you’re looking to get these games, you’ll need to go through the Fuze Arena website – you can’t search them in Fuze 4 itself. To enter a game code, go to the Programs menu and press “Y”. Also, you need Fuze 4 to play these downloadable games – Fuze 4 Player cannot access them. Ironically, the best games I’ve played on Fuze are a few of the ones included with the free Fuze 4 Player, so unless you really want to explore the incomplete works of other creators, this may not be the route for you.
Number of Games: Over 600
Average Quality: C-
Variety: C+
Search-ability: C+
Date Last Checked: 2/2/2022
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Game Builder Garage
Like the Labo games, Game Builder Garage offers a limited ability to create a wide range of games, but those limits mean that more often than not what you’ll find here are extremely short single-level games, or “proof of concept” experiments that would be hard to even classify as a “game”. Unfortunately, the lack of any built-in search feature for these games means that it’s harder to find new ones to download. Thankfully, there are a fair number of websites and YouTube channels that spread game codes around, so it’s not too terribly hard to come across new ones, you just need to put the effort into seeking them out.
Number of Games: Unknown (a fairly good number can be found via internet search)
Average Quality: D
Variety: B
Search-ability: C
Date Last Checked: 2/3/2022
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Minecraft
Players can access entire worlds created by other players. Some are made with a story in mind, some have clever puzzles built into them, and many follow a theme or an artistic idea. Personally, in my hundreds of hours in Minecraft, I’ve never been especially interested in exploring these other worlds – the random one provided by the game is already plenty engaging. However, I know that others feel differently, and there are plenty of interesting worlds here to explore for those who have a desire to do so. Some of these require a payment, but many are free.
Number of Games Levels: Unknown, but likely an extremely large number (the search maxes out at just under 100 results)
Average Quality: C+
Variety: C+
Search-ability: B
Date Last Checked: 2/3/2022
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N++
N++ is all about challenging obstacle course-style levels. If your primary interest is to challenge Platformer levels with a fiendish difficulty, this is the way you want to go.
Number of Games Levels: Unknown, but likely an extremely large number (the search maxes out at 1000 results)
Average Quality: C
Variety: C
Search-ability: B
Date Last Checked: 2/3/2022
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Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 03: Vehicle Kit and Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 04: VR Kit
These games’ Garage mode gives potential designers some user-friendly options to design games, but absolutely zero way to share them. If this sort of thing interests you, and you want to play others’ works, go for Game Builder Garage instead.
Number of Games: 0
Average Quality: N/A
Variety: F
Search-ability: F
Date Last Checked: 2/3/2022
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PlataGo!
PlataGo! Features small games in the Platformer genre… but the core gameplay of PlataGo! Isn’t very good, so the quality of the games you can play is also somewhat lacking. Also, if you’re planning to browse through user-created levels, know that the menus freeze up unless you’re using touchscreen controls. Yes, odd, I know.
Number of Games Levels: Unknown, but likely a large number (the search maxes out at 200 results)
Average Quality: D+
Variety: C+
Search-ability: C-
Date Last Checked: 2/3/2022
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RPG Maker MV / RPG Maker MV Player
This game features… wait for it… RPGs. Okay, joking aside, you will also find games that are closer in style to Graphic Adventure and Visual Novel, removing the combat elements from the RPGs to focus on story and/or puzzles. Perhaps ironically, games that lean heavier into the story side of things tend to be the better ones due to the lack of RPG Maker MV’s ability to get truly creative with RPG gameplay physics here. However, be warned that many of the games available here feature terrible, broken English, and RPG Maker MV’s over-aggressive profanity filter will redact large portions of games that haven’t been properly playtested by their creators. If you’re only interested in playing the works of others, get the player – it’s free. Oh, and be aware that while this application does include a way to search through others’ works, you can’t always trust the rating system, as some pretty terrible games are inexplicably rated highly. Still, if you look around long enough (or get some good recommendations), you can find some real gems here. And if you’re not looking to create your own games, you can just get RPG Maker MV Player and enjoy the games here for free!
Number of Games Levels:
Average Quality: C+
Variety: C+
Search-ability: C+
Date Last Checked: 2/1/2022
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SmileBasic 4
If you’re looking for a decent variety of actual good games, SmileBasic is the way to go, with games here that actually feel like full-fledged releases that could stand on their own if released outside of the platform. There’s a pretty strong focus on Shmups and 2-Stick Shooters here, although there are certainly plenty of other kinds of games available as well. Just a few notes, though – firstly, many of the best games were written in Japanese, meaning you’ll have to deal with a language barrier. And second, because of the way SmileBasic is designed, games can’t use the + button to pause (that kicks you out to the main menu) and as such have used a different button for this purpose, which can be jarring. I should note that the overall high quality of the games I tested may be in part due to this game’s excellent search feature, which makes it easy to try out some of the best games on the platform.
Number of Games: Unsure, but it seemed like a decent number – I stopped counting at 200 or so.
Average Quality: B
Variety: B
Search-ability: A
Date Last Checked: 2/3/2022
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Super Mario Maker 2
It may shock you to learn that Super Mario Maker 2’s shared levels are… Mario-style Platforming levels. Stunning, I know. However, more specifically, the style of level available here varies depending on the focus of the designer. You do have some levels that are created to be akin to traditional Mario-style levels, but others are designed to be insanely challenging to the point where only the most ridiculously-skilled players will complete them. Others will be “auto-complete” style levels, where the level is designed so that Mario will automatically win if you don’t touch the controller at all, or if you do nothing other than hold down the right button. Yet others will play a song as you move through them, and are only designed with this purpose in mind. Thankfully the search tools are generally pretty good (as opposed to the first Mario Maker) and allow you to filter your search results by keywords.
Number of Games Levels: Unknown, but likely an extremely large number (the search maxes out at 1000 results)
Average Quality: B-
Variety: B-
Search-ability: B+
Date Last Checked: 2/3/2022
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Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate lets you share stages to fight on, as well as custom-made Mii characters, along with photos and videos of your matches. Be aware that codes you find online may or may not work – frustratingly, this game removes everything from its server each time it gets an update, requiring its creator to re-upload the content and get a new code. Also know that many of what is uploaded as “stages” aren’t exactly functional – many players use this as an art tool to draw pictures rather than, you know, a stage builder.
Number of Games Stages: Unknown, but likely an extremely large number (Default recommendations show 100 stages, but you can search for more)
Average Quality: B-
Variety: C+
Search-ability: B
Date Last Checked: 2/3/2022
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Terraria
I do not yet have it on Nintendo Switch, so I can’t comment on what’s on offer on this platform, but Terraria allows players to build in a side-scrolling Platformer environment, leading to many players creating elaborate structures.
Number of Games Levels: N/A
Average Quality: N/A
Variety: N/A
Search-ability: N/A
Date Last Checked: N/A
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Ultimate Chicken Horse
Ultimate Chicken Horse’s core gameplay is designed with a multiplayer focus, but its community-created levels are split into multiplayer levels and single-player levels, the latter of which tend to be obstacle courses for a single player to navigate through, with varying levels of difficulty.
Number of Games Levels: Over 141,000
Average Quality: C+
Variety: C+
Search-ability: B+
Date Last Checked: 2/3/2022
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Wargroove
I have not yet had the chance to sample the shared content on this platform.
Number of Games Maps / Campaigns: N/A
Average Quality: N/A
Variety: N/A
Search-ability: N/A
Date Last Checked: N/A
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