Doctor Who Game Maker provides all the tools for simple level design

Home / News / Doctor Who Game Maker provides all the tools for simple level design

If you want to make a video game, you need to know how to code, right? Right?

Well, not necessarily. If you’re not particularly fussed about working with a limited palette of graphics and features, the BBC’s new Doctor Who Game Maker allows you to bash out a multi-level game in a matter of minutes. All in your web browser.

Part of the Beeb’s 2015 Make It Digital season, the Game Maker gives you a toolbox – characters, enemies, items and backgrounds – plus the ability to make 2D levels of up to nine screens in size. Characters and enemies can be invested with scripted movement, attacks and special abilities, and you can even mess around with physics, allowing you to create, say, a Doctor that’s able to fly.

It’s simple stuff, true – you’re not going to build the next Metal Gear Solid title on this thing – but its simplicity is part of its appeal. There’s a tutorial to drag you through the processes required to build a level and monkey with settings, but the simplicity and intuitiveness of the toolset means you can pretty much just experiment and see where you end up.

Anything you do make can be saved to your BBC account (you can sign in via Google or Facebook if you don’t want to create one) and shared with friends. Go on, give it a go. No sonic screwdriver required.

[Source: Doctor Who Game Maker]

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Tech journalism's answer to The Littlest Hobo, I've written for a host of titles and lived in three different countries in my 15 years-plus as a freelancer. But I've always come back home to Stuff eventually, where I specialise in writing about cameras, streaming services and being tragically addicted to Destiny.