How to develop games without coding!

Nowadays, Mobile Games are hugely popular around the world. Reason can be the availability of Mobile Devices like Smartphones or Tabs rather than other Gaming Consoles. Gaming Industry is also increasing every day. Though without associated to any company many people have a hidden desire to make a mobile game, they don’t know how to start or where to start. Some also fear thinking about the programming for making games! For those, BuildBox is an excellent solution to become an Indie Dev!

BuildBox is a 2D game building software where you have no need of any coding knowledge as BuildBox wants to make game generation so effortless. It is a simple Drag-and-Drop software for non-programmer entrepreneur, designers and other gaming enthusiasts who can make games just in a few minutes using this tool! Trey Smith founded this codeless game making software in August 2014 that can run on both Windows Operating System and OSX. With this exciting Tool, You can make games for iOS, Android, Amazon Store and Smart TVs, Mac, PC and Steam.

If you want to be an Indie Developer, then you can easily start with BuildBox with some designing knowledge. Don’t worry if you don’t have any game development education. Just with a little knowledge of Basic Steps of Making Games and your Strong Passion for Game can be your resources to Become a Game developer. And of course, you need this amazing software. Unfortunately, BuildBox is the most expensive game making tools currently available. It costs $99.00 per month, $1188 per year and $2675 outright. But primarily, you can check out the 30 Days Free Trail for your great start!

HOW TO START USING BUILDBOX:
Every time you open this software, You will see a welcome screen pops up! On this window, there is a button named “Create new” on the top left of the screen. By clicking on that, you can start your new project. A Tutorials section is also available on the welcome page including Tutorials video, Simple Game Demos and Platformer Demo. Your Recent Open Projects List and Buildbox Latest News are also shown on this page.

CREATING NEW PROJECT:
To start making a new game click on “Create new” and the “Creator” will pop up on your screen. Let’s get Introduce with this page!

• NAME:
  At first, you will find the option “Name“. Make a suitable name for your new project. But you can change it any time after.

• BASIC SETTINGS:
  In Basic Settings, you have to set the “Orientation” and “Score Type“. There are Two types of Orientation — Portrait and LandScape. Choose it as you want and then select the Score Type that how you want your game’s score to be counted — based on Distance or Avoiding Obstacles or else.

• GAMEPLAY SETTINGS:
  In this section, you have to choose the “Gameplay Type“. There are plenty of Presets for you. Select which one you want. All are different, and each preset will change all the physics properties for your game characters.

• WORLD SETTINGS:
  Here, you have to set “Game Type” and the “World End Action”. In game type, there are Two options — Single World and Multiple Worlds. If you choose the Multiple Worlds, then fix the amount of world in the World Amount option. In World End Action, there are four options — Endless, Next World, World Select and End Scene. Choose one base on how you want to end your worlds. And lastly, if you want Single UI for World, then click on it.

• MENU SETTINGS:
  Choose one or more than one from Pause Menu, Game Over, Coin Shop and Info Screen from this section that you want in your game.

GAME MIND MAP:
When you have done all the settings for your game, click on “Create” button of the page and the creator will build the Framework of your game. As a result, you will find the Perfectly Organised Skeleton for your new game like the images below.This game mind map is also called Menu Editor. This can be simple or complex, depends on the complexity of your gameplan.

In the frame you get, all the Green Screens are User Interface Menus, and all Blue Screens are Actual Gameplay. The connection lines are showing the sequence. You can drag the line and drop on the node of your next expected section. You can create new UI or World by right clicking on your mouse. Thus you can rearrange your skeleton as you want.

EDITOR MODE:
If you double click on the UI or World Screen in the Map, then it’s going to open up the Editor. In Editor Mode, you can edit the default settings, design every detail and turn it into your game.

• START UI:
  The first start button will take you to the Main Menu.

• MAIN MENU:
  In this section, you can design your Main Menu UI. You can edit your Main Menu and set Images for your buttons. You can also decorate the field with Animations. The most important thing you should know that BuildBox only supports PNG file. So your graphic assets must be in PNG format. You can easily your game assets using Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop or any other 2D asset making tools that you like. As it’s a Drag-and-Drop software, so just drag your saved png file of the image and drop it in the image section of buttons. Put other images as background, arrange all images and buttons, decorate your screen as you want.

• WORLD or LEVEL:
  Here, you will design your levels. Level designing is one of the most important parts of your game. By clicking on the world, there will be a default gameplay. You have to input your characters, enemies and environment and decorate your levels as you want. Both sides of the screen show some menu bar with various options like character modifier, actions, effects, logics, etc.

• GAME UI:
  Here, you will set the game or world UI according to your game control system which must be user-friendly.

• GAME OVER:
  In this section, you will arrange the Game Over screen UI for the end of your game.

These are the basics of starting BuildBox. Isn’t it super easy to use? Though it’s very limited like there is no use of advanced logic, it is perfect for Casual Mobile Games. One more exciting news is you can publish your game through “BuildBox Publishing” if you have an active subscription! So, you don’t need to become tensed about the publishing of your game as an Indie developer. So jump into the 2D game development and bring something amazing for the casual game lovers!

**GAMES WE MADE BY BUILDBOX:
Back Back and Domukun.

**SOME OF THE POPULAR GAMES MADE BY BUILDBOX:
Color Switch, Slip Away, Rotaball, Dragonlings — Baby Dragon Jump Adventure, Swoopy Space, Jox, Color Dotz, The Pit, Impact Ball, The Line Zen , Jumpy, Bounce, Juju on the Beat, Risky Rooms, Rebound, Trapdoors, Endless Sky, Switchy Sides, Drop Out!, etc.

Originally published at gameover.studio on January 25, 2017.