Japanese gaming giant Nintendo are looking to entice young players into learning how to program video games with its latest venture, Game Builder Garage.
The new software, released for the Nintendo Switch console on 11 June, will teach children the basics of visual programming, allowing its players to connect different instructions to create simple gaming language. The instructions are dressed as colourful characters called Nodon. By connecting a ‘Control Stick’ Nodon to a ‘Character’ Nodon, for instance, Game Builder Garage allows you to instruct how that character moves before building levels and obstacles to play with.
Nintendo says there are dozens of different Nodons –including timers, background music, physics and other effects– which can be used to build a wide variety of games. This includes platformers, shoot ‘em ups, card games and simple sport games. Projects can also be created from different perspectives (first-person, side-scrolling, top-down) and using the different control methods of the Switch console (touch-screen, motion control or traditional…
