Aiming to bring mass participation to games development, Project Spark is an ambitious video-game creator for Xbox One and Windows 8.1 that intends to make the arcane straightforward in a user-friendly fashion that encourages creativity.
Free to download but most cost-effective in its boxed form, which comes with additional content worth much more than its retail price of £27, Spark utilises simple gamepad, tablet or Kinect controls to generate a game world before introducing interactive elements. Adding movement and intelligence to enemies and objects in the world is a matter of selecting menus, sliders and preconfigured “brains”. Something one can play quickly emerges, although the truly engaging and fun games take a little longer.
Although the 12 rating derives from the ability to include violence towards human characters, a wide variety of game types are possible and it’s in the detailed fine-tuning of these that Project Spark excels, offering tools to match even the wildest imaginations. The gaming creations can then be shared online with other Project Spark users.
With a thriving support community and solid tutorials, it has met its stated aims with aplomb, offering a route into game development for anyone. Indeed, it does a better job of connecting this experience to real programming logic than many of its competitors, such as Disney Infinity: Toy Box or Little Big Planet.
