(a long ramble. me getting thoughts into Some Form.)
i am not a game developer.
well, i would love to be, someday, but i stumble over executive dysfunction and fall flat on my face every single fucking time. but that doesn't mean SHIT, because i have always been deeply fascinated with all the software sitting in that room between "game" and "game creator", of all ages for all ages. from games which skew more towards "level creator" like Cartoon Network's old Flash offerings and Sploder and ancient pinball table crafting software and home design applets you use from your browser (hey. this counts. >:(), to things which may as well be (or even really are!) just straight-up somewhat more approachable game dev environments, like Roblox and RPG Maker, to the gradients of games that fall between.
and - though my thirteen years of Roblox account age may lead you to think otherwise - the one i feel the most connected to and informed by is in truth a little early-tens browser edutainment gig known as Gamestar Mechanic.
that's not fancade. i know. that has nothing to do with the first word in the title. we'll get there, i promise.
everything that has to do with the title of this post below the cut... eventually.
1. Gamestar Mechanic
gamestar mechanic is a Flash browser game an entirely undisguised Electron app leading to the website you could access a Flash browser game from once and still can with it and it alone developed by E-Line Media, officially released released in 2010 and graced with my presence in 2013. i could tell you so many things about it. so, so many things about it. the rabbit hole of Things I Know About It runs deep, and maybe i'll light that fire someday, but for now, i'll just give you the basic rundown.
GSM is meant to introduce kids to game design - shit, they used to sell classroom licenses and lesson plans and fucking summer one-on-one courses before they made everything free shortly before the end of Flash and the subsequent release of the Electron app. but all that's unimportant what's important is it comes with a CAMPAIGN. ZZT might have its default worlds, Atmosphir its official numbered 3D Platformer Worlds, roblox its smattering of ancient dev levels. but GSM, being an edutainment title, is something else.
the Gamestar Mechanic story mode, the "Quest", sees players take the role of Addison, a big dreamer video game player who lives in a world run by games seeking to become a game designer. in the first (and originally, only free) chunk of Quest they are run through sees them given a crash course as to how to work the editor itself, along with a couple bits of like, the beginnings of game design.
the player is slowly introduced to each concept, given examples of it done well and done poorly, applied thick and applied thin, and then usually asked to give their own take on it. the savvy player can whip up something Boring and Easy usually of course but this game is expecting you to be honest, and it's more fun that way. at the end of this first hunk of quest you are given a set of blocks and told "go. be free. we've shown you how to use these tools, so use what you've learned, meet a couple requirements and make your first game. really, odds are it's just a level - nothing more - but at the end, what you've made is published for everyone to see, unlocking the ability to actually make a game public. this requirement that you complete the first third of the story mode, learn a little about game design and make a game means that - while there's stll junk - it's fewer, further between, and often closer to "resembles a game maybe" than "we slapped everything around randomly".
honestly? i recommend getting GSM yourself and running through the story at least. i like it, and now that Everything Is Free! it's not like you're spending money on it.
something to know, though, is that - though there's a breadth of assets to make levels with - they're ultimately pretty limited. it takes a lot of ingenuity to do things, and some things just kind of Can't be done. you can make top-down exploration games, you can make side-scrolling platformers, and if you're clever you can make some mighty janky contraptions that do a variety of things. but if there's two things it cannot do, it's role-playing games and multiplayer anything.
2. Fancade
fancade is much closer to the "game creation software" side. to be honest, i don't care about the game design aspect of Fancade. i do not actually care to participate in the community. my phone cost 30 dollars off the internet, runs Android Nougat, and has a screen cracked by many drops but still trucking along anyway. i don't care to try making my own little mobile game when i have enough fun simply playing whatever i bump into or dipping into the official "quest" full of curated samples of games for the variety. sometimes people post games that are entirely just code comments, desperate cries for others to respond to them on a platform with no way to interact within itself.
i really don't have much to say, other than "pool is the one game i consistently play on it" and "the drama that leaks into fancade itself is funny with no context because this game has no comments system or much in the way of metrics aside from high scores". except i have maybe a little. earlier today, i ran into a "game" on it that was not in fact a game at all.
it was an (entirely indecipherable?) attempt to make an "account system" even though you already have a fancade account?? this seems kinda silly, with Daily Perks. fueled by you registering an account, whereupon you would be able to get daily points to level up, as well as apparently redeem codes from in the games to level up.
this cannot be done in fancade.
this Literally Can't Be Done. so instead, the creator opted to have you e-mail them in the space year 2022 with your "account ID" and "nickname" to "log in" and then they'd... track your points?? by hand?? baffling. this whole scheme is both genuine looking and entirely broken. none of it is understandable, and all the components appear to be broken... but it stirred something within me. you can feel the sheer desire to just Do Something Wild That The Game Itself Would Never Let You Do. the want to really and truly BE something, even if the grasp on English in this case is tenuous enough to be indecipherable to all but the author.
for the first time in forever, i was reminded of my GSM days, wild and free, living in my own little circle, and of a persistent thing people tried again and again...
3. Play-By-Post (HARDCORE MODE)
Gamestar Mechanic's comments system is not particularly robust. every comment is listed, in reverse chronological order, below the game window. it is, short of just making a game to say what you want, the only method you have of communicating with other people here. what gamestar mechanic does have, however, are text popup blocks and the ability to edit games you've already published.
and, with a little elbow grease, this can mean the world.
Gamestar Mechanic had a small genre of game that is, effectively, a multiplayer online role-playing game run entirely in comments and text popups by a single user for anyone willing to drop a line in the comments. and when i say "role-playing game" i don't mean it in the collaborative storytelling way. these things live and die on the numbers, and boy were there a variety of levels of Dedication To Tracking Those, from "mostly just the honor system" to "handcrafted number ID system". and like... this all HAD to be run by hand! like, by necessity! these games often burnt out relatively quick for apparent reasons, but like... the amount of thought that goes into putting one of these up in the first place is crazy, from the simulated-town-type stuff to the Actual RPG Type stuff. and i even had a crack at it (but, uh. executive dysfunction kneecapped all attempts.)
but really, the point is... people found ways to bodge together something GSM wasn't designed for, and they were WILLING to hold it together with their bare hands.
4. The Kids Are Alright
and it's today i see that spirit never died. it clearly didn't START with GSM, but i don't think that matters. people will forever find ways to reach beyond the bounds of their tools, trying to hold together their bodge with popsicle sticks and hope. they could have just as easily signed up for proboards, or made a discord... but there's a charm to seeing them try and do it on a platform NOT MEANT FOR THIS, you know?
people find a way.
people always find a way.
people will always find a way, and that charms me. some things never die.