Everyone Makes Games

Video games can be playful, weird, exciting, curious, magical, and even downright scary. We enjoy playing games because they act like windows into other worlds, worlds that move and change as we play with them, worlds whose rules are different than our own. (Sometimes these rules seem to make more sense than ours.) Games can be places we visit for a short time or places we get lost in for long stretches at a time. Through games, we can try on other personas and explore different perspectives.

Whatever games might mean to you, you should know that you can make your own games. And it’s a lot easier than might you think! The Make Your Own Video Games series shows you how to make fun, interactive games from scratch using a few tools.

What You’ll Need

To create the games in this book in this series, you’ll need the following:

• Access to a computer
• An internet connection

That’s it! In this book, we’ll work with a tool called PuzzleScript, which is designed for making puzzle games. We’ll create little objects and write rules that explain how they interact with each other.

Before you learn how to make games with PuzzleScript, let’s first explore some history behind the games you enjoy today.

A Brief History of Games

Games have been around forever, or at least since the start of civilization. In fact, our oldest ancestors made their own games from sheep’s bones (the very first dice!). They used seeds and some holes in the dirt to make the game we now call Mancala. Tic-tac-toe was first played more than 3,000 years ago in Egypt!

Games existed long before other activities, such as writing, painting, and 3D movies. It seems like people were born to play. Whenever a group of people agrees to play by a certain set of rules, a new game is born. As these games pass on to new players, the new group puts its own unique spin on it. For example, a tag player might wonder, “Wouldn’t tag be more exciting if you could rescue people who’ve been tagged?” And just like that, a new rule is born: games grow and change over time, like weird plants.

Games that are designed by a group of people instead of just one person are called folk games. No one person invented tag. More likely, tag had a million different authors who each added their own little touches. This is why so many different versions of tag, like flashlight tag, freeze tag, and kick the can, exist today. All it took was someone to come up with another, more fun, way to play the game, and the rest was history.

The mobile games on your phones are designer games, which were made by a single person or a team of people. They aren’t folk games, but they’re still the result of people playing games and trying to come up with different ways to improve a game or create new games using their imagination.

While playing a game, have you ever thought, “This game would be so much cooler if it just had this!” If so, you have the makings of a great game designer.

Who Makes Video Games?

In the 1960s, computers were the size of an entire room: these huge computers were called mainframes. Because computers were so expensive and complicated, only a few people could use them to make video games.

One of the oldest video games, Spacewar, was written by punching holes into paper cards and then putting the cards into a computer. After writing out the code on paper, you then had figure out which holes to punch on a card so the computer could read and understand the cards. If any of the holes were wrong, you had to start over and repunch all the cards!

As you can imagine, computers were very tricky to use back then. They were also so big and expensive that only schools could afford them. In fact, most of the video games made in the 1960s and 1970s were designed by students at universities, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

But these students were not being taught game design in school. They were being taught serious computer programming. However, between classes, they snuck away to the computer labs and figured out how to make video games because they thought games were cool. They disguised their games as Serious Computer Programs because the administrators would delete any programs that looked like games, calling them a waste of space.

Today, we remember all those early games, but not many of the Serious Computer Programs. Keep that idea in mind if someone complains about how much time you spend making games. People might forget the serious programs, but they’ll usually play a fun game for a very long time.

Computers have changed a lot since the 1960s. Now people carry around a pocket-sized computer—your smartphone—which can do so much more than a huge mainframe computer ever could and is much faster. These pocket-sized computers are also less expensive and easier to use.

You’ll learn how easy it is to make your own video games using free, simple tools like PuzzleScript, which hundreds of different people have used: these are people of different colors and genders, young and old. People who are sick and people who are well, those who have gone to college and those who haven’t. People who like cats, people who like dogs, and those who like both. All kinds of people.

So the answer to the question Who makes video games? is everyone!

Why Make a Video Game?

People create video games for many different reasons! For example, maybe you’ve tried drawing comics, and it was fun. Maybe you’ve tried writing stories, and that was fun too. Perhaps you enjoy arts and crafts as well as making music. Odds are if you’re creative, you’ll also enjoy making games.

Another reason to create games is that you really like them and want to learn how they work. Making your own games is the best way to understand how game designers make decisions when they create your favorite games.

If you don’t like games very much—that’s okay too! Perhaps you can make a new type of game no one has ever seen before—a game that is totally different from the currently available games. Gamers need and like challenges.

If you know you want to be a game developer, you could try to make games that kids will love to play for generations, which will inspire them to make games.

For me, making games is exciting and new, even after all the time I’ve spent on them. Whenever I think I’m done, a new idea pops into my head. I can’t stop thinking about it until it’s out of my head, which means I have to make the idea a reality. When I create a new game, I’m creating something I can share with the world. It feels awesome!

There are tons of reasons to make a game, and they’re all great reasons as long as they excite you.

What Should My Game Be About?

Games can be about anything. Really, it’s true. They can be about big things, small things, important things, silly things, people and places, your mom or dad, a brother or sister, or your cat or dog.

They can be about things that happened to you or things you wish had happened to you. You could make a game about your weird dreams, about a funny story you heard, or about robots taking over the Earth.

Or perhaps your game can be about the network of secret tunnels leading from your basement to the center of the Earth (you know about those, right?) and the monsters that live in them.

You could just try re-creating games that you already play and like. Make your own game about the dude in the funny overalls with the mustache (Mario). For example, what would Mario do on his day off? Would he go on a picnic? Do you think he has a cat?

Although there are already games about almost anything, there is always room for more ideas. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!

About PuzzleScript

PuzzleScript is a simple tool for writing puzzle games. In a PuzzleScript game, you move objects around to solve problems and play through the levels.

Do I Need to Know How to Program?

No, you don’t need to know how to program to use PuzzleScript. You’ll type words into your computer to tell the game what objects should look like and how rules should work, but PuzzleScript has its own language for doing this. It will take you a little time to learn it, but it isn’t that complicated. Once you understand it, you can do lots of interesting stuff!

How Much Does It Cost?

PuzzleScript is free! Making your game, publishing your game, and putting your game online where other people can play it don’t cost a thing! You’ll need access to a computer with an internet connection. If you don’t have a computer at home, try using one at your school or library.

Do I Have to Make Puzzle Games?

No, you don’t have to make just puzzle games with PuzzleScript, but PuzzleScript is best for making turn-based puzzle games where the player uses the keyboard to move objects around in the right way in order to advance to the next challenge.

Alternative Tools

If you dislike puzzles, check out the other two books in this series: Make Your Own Twine Games! and Make Your Own Scratch Games! Twine is best for storytelling, Scratch is best for real-time games, and PuzzleScript is best for making games where the players take turns.

But you should try to learn PuzzleScript, too! The more tools you know how to work with, the more versatile you’ll be as a creator! The best artists can pick up and use any tool to craft something that matches their vision. Let’s get started!