Examining Game Development Programs

Game program environments consist of an integrated development environment (IDE) that includes a source code editor for typing or creating your code, a compiler, as well as a debugger.

Different Environments for Creating Games

Visual Drag and Drop Programs

Visual drag and drop programs use graphical blocks of code. This allows users to create a program logically without having to learn the textual syntax of the program. Programmers are limited by the built in features of the program.

image of completed scratch program including blocks of code and a tetris-like game

Game Engine

A game engine is used to create and edit games that contain specialized IDEs. They contain a range of tools and elements such as renders, animation, physics components, and scripting that contains the source code and tooling necessary to get a video game up and running fast. Game engines have graphical components built for easily creating tasks. Designers can also use the scripting language of the game engine for specialized tasks which provides greater user control in the design of the program.

image of completed complicated gaming program

Frameworks and Other Tools

A framework is a set of tools that streamlines the development process. It provides an API (application program interfaces) that defines what the software can do and provides the framework for creating graphical user interface programs. They provide a combination of programming in a traditional text-based language with visual execution.

Evaluating User Interfaces

Usability Testing

Usability test are used to see if the user interface meets certain usability objectives for the program.

Does it let participants complete specified tasks successfully?
How long does it take to complete specified tasks?
How satisfied are users with the product?
What changes needed to be made to improve user performance and satisfaction?

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