GameSalad is the program we used to create our game, Snake Escape. The program is an entry level tool for making video games due to its simple UI and easy to understand coding method. There are a number of positive and negative aspects to GameSalad.

Positive:- Price (itʼs free)- Skill level required- Easily upload game to community site- Easy coding- Simple UI

As an entry level game development program, it is good that it is free, meaning that you can try out game development without risking money if you decide it is not for you. The simple user interface makes navigating around GameSalad easy, after a few GameSalad tutorials, you are able to find your way around the software without any problems. Another thing that is great about the program is the assisted coding. Instead of writing lines upon lines of code, the easy drop-down menus and selectors make coding your game so much easier to understand making advanced coding knowledge not essential. I had only basic coding knowledge before starting my game, however I was able to code the game without any major problems. Another feature I like with GameSalad is the community site page where you can upload your games for others to play. This is a great way of getting feedback on your game and discovering any bugs your game may have. People may suggest improvements, or any additional content the game could include.

Negative:- Limited scene dimensions- Doesnʼt directly support advanced coding- Preview can be unresponsive/laggy

When making our game, we found the scene dimension limitation frustrating. Our game is based around a maze, and so the harder we wanted to make our game, the bigger the maze had to be. Our original maze design was covered a fairly large area, however due to GameSaladʼs scene dimension limit (2048x1536) we had to decrease the size of our maze design, making it a lot easier than originally planned. This could be a problem if we made multiple levels for our game as we would want the maps to become bigger over time. Also, advanced, raw coding isnʼt directly supported within GameSalad, meaning if you wanted to add some advanced features to your game that GameSalad doesnʼt offer, you would need to write the code on other program (Xcode) before implementing it into the game, you cannot write it straight into GameSalad. Another negative aspect of GameSalad is the unreliability of the game preview. The preview screen can sometimes become unresponsive or lag if the visual assets used in the game are high quality. This can be frustrating as it stops you from getting a clear idea of how the game will run on a device or in the web browser. GameSalad also crashed a couple of times when developing the game, which could have cost me hours of work if I had not regularly saved it.

In conclusion, for a free to use, entry level development tool, GameSalad is a great program to make your first video games. It is easy-to-use, provides plenty of support on its forums and can be great at giving you basic knowledge of how game development works. The software however becomes slightly obsolete for developers looking to make more advanced games and the occasional crash can really get frustrating, however for the price you pay (nothing, its free!), GameSalad definitely has a lot to offer.

GameSalad Evaluation