Game Builder Garage is Impressive, but Not Perfect – REVIEW (Switch)



Is Game Builder Garage as awesome as it seems? Find out in our review that explores the game creator interface, tutorial effectiveness, controls, game logic, online game sharing, comparisons to Dreams and Labo VR, and tons more! All this and more in our in-depth review of Game Builder Garage on Nintendo Switch!
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Review by: André Segers
Thumbnail by: Tom Arnold
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39 thoughts on “Game Builder Garage is Impressive, but Not Perfect – REVIEW (Switch)”

  1. I actually enjoy creating games more than playing them a lot of times, just haven't been able to make games for awhile cause they take so long. Hoping this speeds up the process!

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  2. This is the perfect game for kids to learn how to make games themselves. My 8 year old self would be in heaven.

    It's a bit much for my 6 year old son, but I'm tempted to buy it now so that he can mess with it as he gets older and his reading improves

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  3. As an actual programmer I found this to be extremely aggravating.

    I just played through the demo which runs you through the first game tutorial; for me all of the concepts were just completely self evident aside from the "objects appear on the screen where you place them in the programming area" thing, which admittedly was also pretty intuitive as soon as I saw it. I kept wanting to just experiment and ignore all of the dialogue which was trying to explain object oriented programming to me for the 1000th time. I also can't help but think that this toolset will end up being very limited because you can't import assets from elsewhere. It feels like a huge oversight that you can't just use unity or blender and import a file format from your computer for example. Making pixel maps or any kind of drawings with the switch touch screen just isn't going to cut it.

    Also would be nice if you could create custom objects, even if they are somewhat simplistic it would open up the possibilities of these games significantly. From what I've seen though, this is not a thing. The programming logic reminds me of scratch and simulink which are both fairly competent tools but visual programming is typically ineffecient once you try to achieve a certain complexity. There is a reason that no visual programming languages are really mainstream outside of teaching.

    Oh well, I guess it makes sense that this tool really wouldn't be for someone like myself since I could build a game faster in something like unity or game maker studio. I am glad that a tool like this exists because it'll be a good learning experience.

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  4. So, in my experience, for a Pacman game, the easiest thing to do for AI is to get it to pick a random invisible point (dot) and move there (using its pathfinding logic). Once it gets there, it picks another one, and so on. You can really easily vary the behaviours of the different enemies.

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  5. Got to test the demo this night, was suprised how great that first levels tutorial were, for something that went for hours on a game design thing to learn to start prototyping in game maker, the tutorial got you further in waaaay less time, getting it just to be able to play through that since it seems very handlheld which kind of is a great way to teach (hopefully).

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  6. I am planning on making a puzzle game where you can’t jump and you have to try and get to a higher up area so you have to use different stuff like bouncy rubber and other kind of stuff like that in order to be able to get up to the place you want to get to

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  7. It feels like such a waste that they never included at least the 3D Nintendo characters from SmashBros in this game. Those models are fantastic and it would have work well to put Link or Kirby in my very own game. Feels like a wasted opportunity, maybe a patch will include that option someday.

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  8. I kinda like how there is a lot the game doesn't teach you. I mean, it can't teach everything…and besides, there will be countless actual programmers ripping into this game and sharing tutorials.

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  9. In Mario Maker 2 it was easy to share and play other people levels and that made it so popular but unfortunately here it's pretty difficult to share or play games that aren't shared specifically to you.

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  10. A lot of you are missing the point of this game. This was made especially for people who have no game-making or programming experience at all. Of course you, with unity, unreal engine, or computer science experience will feel limited, you want more because you KNOW you can do more. But this wasn't made for you.

    People with no experience don't wanna go higher. They want to understand the basics, they want to be able to make a game from start to finish, no matter how simple it is. They want the experience, not the challenge. As many said, this is an introduction, and imo a very good one, to game-making and programming in general. If they want more, they will move on to better tools. This is just a way to give them a taste of what making games is all about. Also, for those of you that are worried about the limitations, see it as a challenge. It's extremely fun to challenge ourselves to make something big with limited tools. Like drawing something with a limited palette. There's a ton of enjoyment in that.

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  11. This is a very simple programming school game. I think Nintendo wanted people to make smaller simple WarioWare style projects and share them. Its very limiting in what you can do, but its about the experience of trying out programming. PS4 Dreams is leaps above this tho.

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