Pixel Press Floors is an exciting, user-friendly app for helping students to design and build their own online games. It is free from iTunes and can be used on the iPad. Games can be viewed on iPhones and iPods.
You can work within the app and draw on the screen or you can use good old pen and paper to plan out your game before screenshotting it onto your iPad. This is great for classrooms where there are not enough iPads to go around.
You can work within the app and draw on the screen or you can use good old pen and paper to plan out your game before screenshotting it onto your iPad. This is great for classrooms where there are not enough iPads to go around.
I like this app because it comes with plenty of resources for supporting learners. There are lesson plans and printable resources which you can basically hand over to the students and let them nut it all out for themselves...great problem solving and design thinking. Get them to analyse games they play and think about what keeps them playing. Use the game to tell a story. This links really well to quest story telling.
Just have a go!
Just have a go!
There's also the paid Adventure TimeGame Wizard (NZ$6.49) which makes this accessible to Google Play users.
Here's the promo:
Here's the promo:
When I used this in class, many of the students who drew with pencil and paper had trouble transferring their image onto the iPad. After reading the website, it turns out that the developers are well aware of this and are working to improve it. They do give some advice. Still, the kids can do their planning on Pixel Press and then use the in-app planner to create their actual drawing. A bit of a glitch but workable.