Ben 10 Alien Force Game Creator
© 2008 The Cartoon Network
Great for introducing a child to the very basics of game design, The Cartoon Network's Game Designer is a free (ad supported) drag-and-drop game design experience found at http://gamecreator.cartoonnetwork.com/. You start by selecting a background, and then drag game elements into place. To make a maze, you can paste walls and barriers in place. You can sprinkle your maze with enemies (to jump over) or gems to collect. Once things are ready, you click on "play" to start a timer. To move, you use the arrow keys. There's a bit of debugging involved in making a game work, and it is easy to go back and edit your design, which increases the educational value of this experience. As children play, they are introduced to upcoming episodes of other Cartoon Network programming. Finished games can be saved, shared, or sent by email. This isn't the most sophisticated programming experience by any stretch, but it is easy to use, and introduces the basics of how games are made. For a more complex programming experience, try Scratch (http://scratch.mit.org). See also the
Internet Site, Windows, Mac OSX
Teaches: creativity, logic
CTR Rating: 85%