September 21, 2015

Lessons from Super Mario Maker


I've basically been wanting to make video games since as long as I've been playing video games. I think most gamers have. But I think we take video games for granted. On a few occasions I've actually tried to make my own games and it's a lot harder than it seems. Even games that seems simple, like a top-down Zelda style game, have incredibly intricate rules.

I've even tried software built to make game creation simple with stuff like drag-and-drop interfaces. Trust me, you'd probably have an easier time pushing your car uphill than making a simple, bug-free game in a month for a class assignment where you're with a group of three other people and they don't put in the same amount of work and you have to animate sprites by yourself while your friends are off actually playing video games but you can't because you're busy making one and it's not fun anymore.
And then came Super Mario Maker.