Discussion Several months later: How is the user-made content on Game Builder Garage?

[GamerJM]

My thoughts on this game, as someone who has very little interest in using it as a tool to build games, was to wait to see what kinds of interesting user-made content would be made. It's now been a few months since it came out. Are there any YouTube videos of really interesting or worthwhile little games that have been made on it?

 

[Dopply]

I honestly feel like I wasted my money. That's probably not fair, I knew what I was getting into, but I didn't think Nintendo would literally just drop the game the way they did. As an amateur indie dev, I was naturally pretty excited, but that all sorta fell apart. A shame, really. At least it was only $30.

 

[Lant_War]

I don't think there was ever any sort of serious content produced past the first couple weeks. The lack of an in-game browser pretty much killed any chance of it developing a community.

I honestly feel like I wasted my money. That's probably not fair, I knew what I was getting into, but I didn't think Nintendo would literally just drop the game the way they did. As an amateur indie dev, I was naturally pretty excited, but that all sorta fell apart. A shame, really. At least it was only $30.

To be completely fair, they only ever advertised the game as a learn to program tool for young audiences and pretty much nothing else, but the infuriating part is that there's no real reason for it to be like that. Without some of the stupid limitations they put in place the engine was absolutely strong enough to see some real creations and turn the game into a platform, but they just went at it in the most bizarre way possible.

I don't feel like I've wasted my money since at least the tutorials were cute and I did make a couple things, but it's "unfulfilled potential: the game".

 

[Roger Rabbit]

I love it.

I never really had much interest in playing other people's creations. For me, it's all about gradually getting my own game playable, and then having the feeling of satisfaction that it works.

I enjoy RPG Maker in the same way.

 

[Irene]

There's a subreddit and two discord servers that I frequent.

The subreddit is awesome, and fairly active. Occasionally, something really impressive pops up.

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

But in terms of YouTube channels highlighting "Look at these insane GBG games!", the game has pretty much fizzled out in that department.

 

[em]

I bought it because my first grader was interested and would say the community games are only impressive in the context of the limited tools. It’s like back when we were kids learning Logo or HyperCard — nothing any of us came up with would attract attention from the outside world, but some kids’ projects would amaze classmates.

Roblox is a big step up from GBG as a development platform and community, but even there I wouldn’t say there’s anything interesting or worthwhile as an outsider.

 

[OpulentEmpress]

BeardBear on YouTube has found some interesting stuff.

 

[Tangerine_Cookie]

I've found some interesting projects randomly, and have been following the random tutorial games Nintendo distributes through the news app on the switch to work on my own game.

It hasn't blown up, but there's definitely a community making games for it.

 

[bayonetta]

the 2nd game looks good and with such limited tools:


Protectors Of Glaggleland (By lemonscop): G-001-BGK-DRH

 

[TanookiTom]

I honestly forgot this game existed. And I guess so did Nintendo
I enjoyed how they would teach you everything in the demo and the presentation of it, but I feel they could have done more with this/given the players a bit more freedom to produce more in-depth games more easily.

Nice to see that people are still building stuff with it though.