[pak]

Well produced video and website, simple and honest presentation. Seems to build a lot on the appeal of Minecraft, but considering how popular Minecraft is that's probably a very smart move. Hope it works out! I'd try it out if there were a Mac version.

Looking at the time-lapse of using it [1] it's certainly not a "game"; you need to have patience and dedication to make anything serious. If there were any friendlier looking interface for learning the principles of 3D editing and animation, though, I sure haven't seen it. Could perhaps inspire a lot of kids from middle-school age and up.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1QbJO3y_O0#!

[roryokane]

To make it more game-like, perhaps CraftStudio could emulate the Jobs function from WarioWare D.I.Y. for the DS. In that game, you were tasked with drawing a small number of assets for a game template, such as drawing your spaceship and enemies in a top-down shooter. It also had a programming challenges function where it asked you to implement a certain functionality, and just one line of code was blank - but you sometimes had to look at the code of the whole rest of the game to figure out what was left.

I would certainly call WarioWario D.I.Y. a "game to make games", so the developer should definitely check it out if he hasn't. It's very polished. Though CraftStudio's scripting system will have to be pretty different. WWDIY's scripting system is very primitive, and has low, hard limits on numbers of objects. It isn't too bad in-game because each game you create is played for only a few seconds, so doesn't have too much stuff, but CraftStudio is obviously different.

[elisee]

Yeah I've watched a few videos about WarioWare. They really nailed the "it's a game" thing, but the restrictions are really heavy. Having worked on a couple Nintendo DS titles myself (nothing worth mentioning), I'm pretty sure the hardware limitations had a great part in this. Those consoles were / are amazingly limited.

[drostie]

This is the closest I've seen to "3D editing which looks fun": http://vimeo.com/18423305 ("World of Love 2010: Eskil Steenberg", runtime 26 mins).

It also discusses why you normally need this "patience and dedication" -- you're often wrapping images around polygons and you have to tell the computer how to do that.

[elisee]

Thanks for the kind words.

You're right in saying CraftStudio isn't your regular game, but I do think it has a very gamey feeling to it, if only for the fact that editing is tailored to be simple and it's fully multiplayer.

There are quite a few people hopping on the public test project again and again with nothing special in mind but to join others in making something fun and cooperating.

I think using the word "game" lowers the barrier, some people are wary at the idea of _working_ on a game, using _tools_.

[jordaninternets]

Just like you said, I'd play it if there were a mac version.