Build Your Own Geography Trivia Game With UMapper GeoDart

UMapper GeoDart is an easy way to make your own geography trivia games. They plug into a bunch of different map APIs like Google and Bing which you can then use via a WYSIWYG interface to create map trivia games. You can create the games using their Flash client and then the map games publish out as Flash games which means you can embed them around the web. One other interesting thing they included was an Export To Actionscript button which gives you all the AS3 source code you would need to include that exact same map you just built into your own Flash game. Because the output for these games is in Flash you can also play them on Android devices but they also appear to have an HTML5 version which is embedable via an IFRAME.

Using their game creator (which looks like it is built in Flex) you basically drag and drop points on a map and then you add names to those points and a question in the description field for that point. The game client will then ask that question of the user and it is up to the user to click on the map and find the point that the question asked about (an example would be Where is London? and then the user has to click in London on the world map to answer it correctly). You have a limited amount of time to answer each question (which is configurable). The closer on the map to the correct answer the more points you receive. If you are looking to create a more interactive arcade style game you might build your own game using Pulado.

Head over to UMapper GeoDart and start building your own geography trivia games by clicking here.

Make Your Game Online: Tower Defense

One of the best ways to start out building games is to build levels in an existing game first. Over at Fupa.com they have a flash game called “Fupa Kingdoms: Defense” and it allows you to build your own tower defense maps and then publish them for other people to play. There are over 2,300 maps created by other users for you to rate and play. You can customize the background of the map with all kinds of different tiles including grass, dirt, sand, water and more. Another customizable option is the path that the enemies in the tower defense game will follow (you get a path editor for that). You can also customize the look and feel of the towers which you can build on the map.

Up to six different towers can be defined in your game. You can customize the base and turret part of the tower. You can also choose what projectile the tower will shoot from around 15 different options. You also control the range, speed, cost, damage, and what the upgrade options are for the tower. On the surface it appears like there are only a few options to customize but as you dig deeper it really does open up a huge number of options that can be tweaked for your tower defense game. If you want to make your own game that is not a tower defense game go check out the Pulado engine.

In the enemies editor you can create up to 20 different enemies by changing their body and face. There are literally thousands of different combinations to choose from. Once you set up your enemies you can proceed to creating the different waves will the player will have to defend against. You can customize the enemy wave count, speed, hit points, what score they give off, and how much money they drop when you destroy them. Lots of options.

Some of the last few options that you can configure for your tower defense map is the music for the map and how much money the player should start out with (with one of the options being unlimited money). You can preview your map to see if it is just right and then you can go back and tweak it if it is not. Once it is done you can choose Save Map and it will go into a database where other users can rate your map. Once enough have rated it, it will go into the giant list of other maps for people to play. You can also embed your custom map creation on your own site where people can play your tower defense map.

Head on over and start building your own tower defense game!