YoYo Games launches Little Town, an interactive game-making tutorial, that teaches students game design with GameMaker Studio 2

• Little Town provides an introduction to the principles of game development using GameMaker to college and university students. By building a game to control a child in an idyllic small town, players learn how to design games and develop key coding skills

• The interactive game-building tutorial provides a robust framework for educators with teaching guidelines and assessment criteria with which colleges and universities can effectively start teaching game design to their students.

YoYo Games today announced the launch of Little Town – a major new game-making tutorial which teaches students and hobbyists game development with GameMaker Studio 2, the world’s leading 2D game development engine.

Developed in collaboration with award-winning game developer and university lecturer, Benjamin Rivers, Little Town has been designed to help new game designers quickly learn the core functionality of GameMaker Studio 2 in a natural, fun way.

Little Town is an adventure game in which players control a child in an idyllic small town. By following clues players must find the right items and bring them to one of the town’s three characters – the Baker, Teacher and Grocer.

The tutorial enables students, hobbyists and new game designers to create their own layout for Little Town and use code to bring it and its people to life. Users will also be able to choose where to hide each item, as well as writing their own hints and dialogue.

With over eight hours of video tutorials as well as a wealth of supporting materials, Little Town provides a robust framework for educators with teaching guidelines and assessment criteria with which colleges and universities can effectively start teaching game design to their students.

The Little Town tutorial teaches many core skills from creating vibrant animations using GameMaker’s powerful Sequences tool to controlling sprites, sounds and laying-out the playing area  – providing the perfect introduction to GameMaker Studio 2 and the fundamental principles of game design.

Stuart Poole, General Manager, YoYo Games, said: “We’re extremely pleased to release Little Town, our most comprehensive GameMaker tutorial to date and the first in a series of high-quality tutorials which are currently under development.

Poole continued: “While we’re constantly striving to make GameMaker as easy to use and accessible as possible, quality tutorials like Little Town are essential as they provide a practical framework to enable users to quickly get up-to-speed with the core functionality of GameMaker so they can start making their own amazing games.”

Benjamin Rivers, Little Town’s creator, added: “While Little Town is perfect for anyone who wants to learn how to understand the basics of game making, the tutorial has been developed specifically to support students in higher education who are learning game design”.

The tutorial features six sections and has been designed to allow for both synchronous and asynchronous participation for in-class and remote learning.

“Little Town has been structured to encourage self-driven learning and experimentation, which we hope will inspire a new generation of game developers,” added Rivers