Google's experimental incubator has released a new video game project that allows you to easily build simple games.
Called Game Builder, the game lets you drag and drop elements such as characters on to a clean sandbox. Very much like Minecraft, you're able to architect an entire world, only you apply preset commands to determine how the elements work. Game Builder comes from Area 120 at Google. It’s free to play and available for both Windows and MacOS machines.
Area 120 typically develops interesting products, although many of them never go anywhere, such as this YouTube party app. It began in 2016 as a way for Google to attract talent that likes to think outside the box. It then gives them the opportunity to test new ideas that could eventually become official Google products, or at the very least be integrated into existing products.
Eagle-eyed watchers already spotted that Game Builder has been on Steam since November, complete with nearly 200 reviews and a positive score. It's been gaining traction since Google published a blog post to promote it, describing Game Builder as a way to "enter a virtual world with your friends and build a game together in real time" - without needing to know any code.
Google explained that Game Builder has a co-op mode, so multiple people can build a game together at once. You can also share your creations and browse through games made by others. The whole point, however, is that anyone can use it to make their very first video game.