Nothing worth doing ever comes easy. Game development being one of those things, the ever-growing industry changes and evolves on a constant basis. When game development was a relatively new thing, it took a lot of talented and technical minds to get most projects deemed simple by today’s standards off the ground running. As it goes with most technological advances, things have changed dramatically in the past twenty years.

Game-Making for Gamers

Game development platforms such as Unreal and Unity have countless online tutorials, allowing even armchair gamers to go beyond the title screen and create something unique. Standing along the forefront with these titans of industry is YoYo Games‘ 2D game creation tool, GameMaker Studio.

Originally called Animo back in 1999, GameMaker Studio has seen several evolutions over the years. Knowledge of coding is no longer a prerequisite, as GameMaker Studio is based off of a drag-and-drop system and a proprietary scripting language called GML, or Game Maker Language. GML can be used in conjunction with drag-and-drop commands to truly bring innovation and originality to projects. These projects can be shared through PC or consoles, which brings us to a recent development: the current version, GameMaker Studio 2, will be launching support this summer for the Nintendo Switch.

Making the Switch

I’ve often touted the Nintendo Switch as my new favorite platform to enjoy indie titles on, as Nintendo has been focusing a lot of their efforts on delivering indie content on a console with only a handful of exclusives.

GameMaker Studio and GameMaker Studio 2 are responsible for bringing some of the most influential indie games into the light, such as Undertale; VA-11 Hall-A; Cook, Serve, Delicious; Spelunky; the list goes on and on.

Fans of 2D games rejoice, as more gems are sure to be added to the Nintendo Switch eShop. However, with those gems are also a handful of flops that have somehow made their way past Nintendo’s stringent quality control.

At the end of the day the most important questions remain: which games will they allow to enter the eShop? What kind of application and review process will developers have to undergo before their product is sold in the eShop? How will budding developers utilize the Switch to its full potential, with access to touchscreen and motion controls as well as the innovative JoyCon controllers? As always, we’ll have to wait and see.