Mockingbird makes a game development game

THERE IS A GAME cleverly called Mockingbird that purports to be a game-making game. We saw it at the Austin GDC and decided to launch another of our famous contests around it.

First though, a little about the game, it is a flash-based game construction set in the vein of the old pinball construction sets and the like, drag and drop creativity. Mockingbird is a classic 'indie' game by Mockingbird Games, a very small company based a few blocks away from GDC in Austin.

There are four steps, Personalize, Build, Test and Save before you can play. Personalize is picking artwork, or uploading it, for the main protagonists in the game, attaching sounds and assigning a few other properties. It really isn't that complex.

The fabled personalize screen

From there, you go to the Build screen where you do a bit of dragging and dropping and positioning. Put a treasure chest down, assign it as a goal to pick up, and attach points to it. The editor is live, so everything you do works as soon as you plop it down. If it screws up badly, you will know in very short order.

The next two steps are pretty obvious, they are called Test and Save. In those screens, you, wait for it, test the game and save the game. Duh.

You can upload the game to the Mockingbird site, as well as get your own URL and embed strings. It couldn't be easier without having someone else do it for you.

The behaviour screen

Mockingbird is free for the basic version, and a mere $9.99 (6.4 Euros) for the advanced version. The advanced one gives you more control over the actions of the game elements, mainly behaviours. A mere $10 basically gets you a component-based framework for their actions, and if you don't like it, you only spent 1/6th of the cost of a generic console racing title.

This brings us to the contest, it is simple, but there is a lot of fine print. Make an INQUIRER-based game. That's it. You could win nothing unless one of the PR people reading this decides to sponsor it, and then who knows?

Points will be based on Inq-ness, inclusion of prevailing internet memes (Lolcats, Rickrolling etc), blatant or subtle corporate placement, humour, and if we need a tiebreaker, gameplay. Gameplay is optional, as is the rule for console games nowadays, but if we can't get to the point of seeing the cool parts of your masterpiece because we feel the need to hit our heads against a wall until the hurting stops, you will not get points for that section. Your call.

So, have at thee. Send us the results, post them below, or email them to the address on the top of this story. We will judge it when we feel the urge, likely at the end of the month, and post something at a later point. If there are any changes we may notify you, but then again, given the lack of prizes, we just may not. Since it is flash-based, you can very likely do it at work, and if you are in marketing, do it for work. Have fun, we have faith in your creativity and borderline sanity. µ