When I first got a proper glimpse of Game Builder Garage last month, its premise was a promising one: here’s a chance for a proper look at how Nintendo goes about the business of making its games, a chance to maybe comprehend some of the magic and wonder that’s made its creations so beloved the world over. After a dozen hours or so with it, there’s one lesson I’ve learned above all: making games is incredibly hard work.
Game Builder Garage review
- Publisher: Nintendo
- Developer: Nintendo
- Platform: Played on Switch
- Availability: Out now on Switch
Not that it ever feels that much like work, thankfully. If you’ve played Nintendo Labo – of which Game Builder Garage is a natural extension, building fulsomely off of the likes of Toy-Con Garage – you’ll be familiar with that frisson of excitement when Nintendo brings its touch to something so everyday. Back then, it was flatpack instructions brought to life on the Switch’s screen and transposed to cardboard – what if Nintendo would only turn its attention to Ikea manuals, we all asked – and now it’s Nintendo delivering the most wholesome, open-armed and entertaining software tutorial I’ve ever come across.
And it is, first and foremost, a software tutorial. Game Builder Garage is cleaved neatly into two halves, and you’ll be funnelled straight away into the first of these, with completion of the first of seven courses necessary before you can attempt the freestyle programming that makes up the second. These lessons are necessary, too, to get even a basic grasp of what’s possible, as you’re gently introduced to Game Builder Garage’s very visual, very hands-on programming language.
It’s also very Nintendo, each element at your disposal – be it inputs, timers or characters and so much else besides – quite literally brought to life as anthropomorphised blocks known as Nodons, each chattering away with its own personality. Making a game is a simple matter of piecing them together to get the right results, your creations ending up a dense spaghetti of Nodon and the strings that connect them.
I say simple, when I actually mean it can be bafflingly complex. The lessons, to reiterate, are essential to making any headway in Game Builder Garage – indeed, in many ways these lessons are the game, each varying in length from 40 minutes for the first through to 90 minutes for the last, and each one resulting in a fully fledged game for you to enjoy. There are small interactive quizzes after each one to make sure you’ve absorbed the knowledge imparted, taking away the guiding hand as you’re asked to implement a feature.