One of the companies that were are particularly excited to see at this years Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC) is GameSalad®. GameSalad provides a wide variety of game development tools that make “iOS, Web & Mac game creation accessible to the 99% who don’t like to code.”¹ The company’s game development tools, “are a top choice by educators when integrating game development technology into their classrooms.”²

GameSalad’s platform – GameSalad Creator (left) – is used to rapidly design, publish and distribute original games with no coding whatsoever required. GameSalad Creator’s visual drag and drop interface combined with the platforms complex behavior library provide all sorts of freedoms to game designers. Further, the Creator incorporates robust publishing tools, allowing designers to publish games to the iOS and Android App Stores in mere days, or publish directly to the web using HTML5.

Several GameSalad executives will be in attendance at the 2014 FETC to, amongst other things, “present thought leadership.”³ The company has been making a strong push for more inclusion in the classroom. This push is evidenced by GameSalad for Education. According to the company, “GameSalad for Education is a comprehensive, turnkey package that pairs a customized curriculum, teaching students how to design, test, build, and publish games, with an easy-to-use development environment that does not require programming knowledge.”⁴ Further, According to Dan Magaha, the Director of Operations for GameSalad:

GameSalad’s tools have been embraced by the educational community across the country…By incorporating the GameSalad toolset into the classroom, educators broaden STEM education, decode the fundamentals of programming and software development and prepare their students for the rapidly-changing digital world.⁵

Magaha and Denise Jackson, a Wimberley TX high school educator, will be hosing a live demo of student-created games and giving a walk through of GameSalad Creator at 2pm on Thursday January 30th at the GameSalad booth at FETC – Booth 1462. Here is a quick walk through of the GameSalad Creator platform to give a little context:

Check out all of our FETC 2014 Coverage.