Game Maker

Game maker is an innovation that creates games. Game Maker is intended to allow users to develop their own games (including characters - or sprites, backgrounds, walls, music and objects).


It is intricate and somewhat complicated to create the games as there are a number of ways to achieve the same result, which means that it is very confusing to learn. However, once you have the hang on if it you are able to work your own way through it and develop some fantastic games. Innovations such as this one can allow for students to develop their problem solving skills, metacognition and higher thinking cognitive skills, which can be beneficial within the classroom.

You can play games created by other people using the same program through the yoyo games forum however you do not receive the information behind the game you are only able to play the game online.

There is support available in the form of forums, emails, blogs and tutorials, however there are not a tutorial available that covers all aspects of Game Maker 0.7.
Game Maker 0.8 is being released soon.

Personally, I dont believe that this would be very beneficial in classrooms (particularly for younger students) as it is very time consuming to learn and it is difficult to incorporate into other learning areas. Whilst I can see that there are some benefits in programs like this, I feel that there are more time conservative ways to cover the same benefits.