Game development on simple programs

[fitsoab]

For around three years (2021-2024) I made games on Scratch, and honestly, it was a lot of fun. I think Scratch is a great example of a website/program that's super easy to learn, even without guidance, while still being super flexible, especially when you open up the possibilities of modifications and extensions, which do it a lot of favors, but I won't get into that, haha

Now that I've started getting back into it and experimenting a little, it's made me curious about external programs, even ones that are extremely simple in nature and not easy to experiment with. Anyone here messed around with these as well? Got any examples you want to share? If so, what have you tried doing with it? If not, what programs or points of discussion intrigue you? Know of any especially impressive works made in simple, easy-to-use development programs? I'm really curious to reach out here a little.

[Mæstro]

I remember playing with Scratch a decade before you. Even back then, there existed Stencyl, which Kongregate introduced to me. It is virtually the same as Scratch, but targets adults without any programming background instead of being a didactic aid for children. Another utility for non-programmers which has existed for over twenty years is Game Maker, which was used to develop classics like Hyper Princess Pitch.

[cl0ud]

This brings me back a little. A couple years back there was this really simplistic game maker program for android that I used, before knowing a lick of programming. It was called Sketch Nation: Create.
It was very limited. You had certain game "presets", like you could make a platformer, a bullet hell style thing, a match-3 game etc. I think there were eight-or-so presets total.
Either way it was pretty cool. You made your own assets, customized the objectives and so on. People made some cool little games with their own little stories and objectives.

I looked into it a year or two ago and, iirc, it's not on the android store anymore but the apk can be found on sketchy apk hosting websites.
It's not very good. WAY more limiting that something even as simple as Scratch, but I'd probably recommend Sketch Nation to a complete beginner before having them try Scratch.

Sorry if this was a bit off-topic haha.