Nintendo announces Game Builder Garage, a game-making game coming next month

From Mario Maker into Game Maker

Nintendo announced a new game out of the blue today that’s all about making games. Game Builder Garage is software for learning to create and share your own video games, built within the suite of Game Builder Garage, arriving on June 11.

Using the visual programming language of Game Builder Garage, you can do basic things like attaching movement to a stick and jump to a button. Then, start expanding outwards—Nintendo’s trailer shows tons of game types and ideas to get your mind thinking about where this system might be able to take you. 

There will be tutorials to teach you how to build projects through step-by-step interactive lessons, and you can also head into Free Programming mode, where you can also swap between game and programming backend to quickly test your creation.

There’s also the ability to exchange and download games, either through a local wireless connection or over the internet. It can be controlled with a Joy-Con controller, Switch Pro controller, or through a compatible mouse plugged into the USB port on the Switch dock, according to a Nintendo press release.

Game Builder Garage so far looks like the mix of Mario Maker with general game creation suites like Dreams, so it’ll be interesting to see what Nintendo brings to the game-making game genre. Game Builder Garage arrives on the Nintendo Switch on June 11 for $29.99.