Through Mario and Sonic (does anyone else remember the love for Zool) most of us have played our fair share of platform games, and now you can create your own platform game with MagiCats Builder by Dreamz Studio
Building games is child’s play
In Magicats Builder you can create and edit levels for the games mascot, Caramel the Cat, to complete and then share your creations to challenge the world.
The levels are created with a simple drag and drop interface using objects selected from a library, if you don’t like where you place an object, then drag it to another location. When you are happy with the level press the play button and the level comes to life.
Through this prototyping-like development it’s easy to work out what’s good and what’s not so good, watching my son build levels was fascinating as he worked out that difficult didn’t necessarily mean fun. Magicats is a fun and easy way to get into basic game design without the complexity of difficult tools.
A Booster Pack of a Twist
When you start the game you have a small number of objects available to use, and this is where the twist comes as you can jump into the in app market place and purchase booster packs each containing a limited number of new objects. You can earn in-game currency by completing levels or of course purchase extra diamonds.
This feature adds an air of mystery as you don’t know what each pack will contain but I appreciate that not everyone likes in app purchases so there is an option to pay a one off charge and get unlimited in game currency.
Taking it to the Next Level
As well as being able to place objects to design your world, you can also their behaviour. Traditionally this would involve coding but in Magicats builder an on screen interface lets you control the AI of each in game character, it means that you can construct some pretty impressive results.
It would be great if you could import or design your own characters as they would allow infinite possibilities, or some serious copyright breaches, but perhaps these things will come in time.
Levels can feel a little short as well, but this encourages players to really makes the use of the space.
Building a Community
Each published world is not only shared with the community but it is also ranked based on popularity on a weekly basis, it’s a way to encourage creators to strive to push themselves to create bigger and better levels.
Ultimately it’s a game
Building and creating is fun, but clearly at heart Magicats is a platform game, and it does a pretty good attempt at being good one, it’s fast, fun and straight forward everything a platformer should be. In addition the online community means that you’ll never be short of new challenges to take on.
If Magicats Builder sounds like your thing, and to be fair it’s pretty cool, then check it out in Steam, iOS and Android on or shortly after the 10th of July, it’s free to play and contains in App Purchases.
