Gamefroot

Luke Appleby at Stuff reports:

If you remember playing Super Mario Brothers and thinking “I wish I could make my own game” – now is your chance.

A new website called Gamefroot launched this week which allows you to build an Adobe Flash game which can be played in a web browser or on an iPhone.

The creation section looks great and is based on an easy foreground-and-background grid system, although I found it was a bit slow to load and respond in some browsers, or even non-functional.

This may have been due to it being built with HTML5, so you’ll need a late-model browser to use it, and the latest Flash Player update to play it.

Gamefroot provides lots of default material to get you started on your side-scrolling game – terrain, enemies, weapons, music, items and more are provided.

The creation engine also has a fairly extensive scripting section, using which you can make objects carry out complex tasks using Boolean operators and variables, which allows for some advanced customisation.

I’m off to the Wellington launch of it tonight.  From what I have seen, this is a great innovation. The interface allows people to create their own games, without needing to know how to code. It opens it up to the masses.

I’m even going to try and create a game myself – set in Parliament where you play a new backbench MP, and you have to defeat certain enemies such as journalists, opposition MPs and even your own colleagues to reach the 9th floor of the Beehive 🙂

Definitely won’t complete the game tonight, but will complete it as time allows.

Am looking forward to seeing what sort of games people create at the launch tonight.