Because our students work in groups and code collaboratively, just as they would in a professional setting, every member of a team must be on board with using the same game engine. The most common program kids come in already knowing is Scratch, but Scratch has a number of significant limitations compared to Construct 3, which is why we prefer the latter. The good news is, if your camper is already familiar with Scratch, they will find the simplest levels of Construct 3 very intuitive and familiar.

Occasionally, exceptions are made for very specific game types: for example, a visual novel style of game will likely be coded in something like Twine or YarnSpinner instead, because these engines are designed with dialogue and story in mind, rather than movement and action. These options will be approved on a case-by-case basis, once the team has agreed that this is the type of game they’d like to work on.

Art and audio assets, on the other hand, tend to be more standardized (music will ultimately be coded into the game as a .wav file, regardless of the software used to create it), so for students who prefer to focus on these fields, there is more flexibility to use programs they may already be familiar with.