Brian Klutch
Who hasn't sat on the couch at the end of a marathon gaming session and wondered what it would be like to make a game rather than just play one? With Pixel Press, anyone can do both-no coding required. The app, which debuts on iOS later this year, converts simple marks on paper into a playable videogame.
The Pixel Press team invented a sketchable language for game design. Armed with custom graph paper and a small glossary of shorthand-lines, Xs, slashes-users draw games, which the app then scans and converts into an actual, playable videogame level. For example, the app reads a blacked-out square as a power-up marker, and Xs on a platform as spikes. It takes less than 30 seconds for the app to convert the marks; once that's done, players add colors and textures.
At launch, the system will make only Mario-style sideways-scrolling games, but the developers at Pixel Press already have a prototype to create puzzles-and they're also planning racing and adventure games.
Pixel Press
Platform: iOS
Price: $10
Available: Winter 2013
This article originally appeared in the September 2013 issue of Popular Science.
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