Project Spark

Project Spark is a commitment, and a huge time investment to really make something substantial. It’s also a worthwhile endeavor for anyone who’s ever wished to make games. Learning the obtuse and complicated systems is surprisingly enjoyable, because you’ll see satisfying results instantly when you conquer a problem. So far, there are few games I’d actually recommend playing on the Project Spark marketplace, but the engine itself is an enormous amount of fun to use. It’s rich with possibility, primed for your creativity, and capable of bringing your imagination to life.

Project Spark won't have you churning out incredible games like a development powerhouse. It will, however, provide you an accessible set of tools and assets to begin the process of bringing your dream games to life. This won't happen overnight, so plan on spending a lot of time here if you are ever going to make something memorable.

Despite a long-standing adoration for the medium of video games, I have never been interested in trying to make my own. Even with that mindset, however, Project Spark quickly got my creative juices flowing in an enjoyable way.

Like most free-to-play games, Project Spark has a catch. Some of the coolest props that you may want to add to your custom games will need to be purchased with an in-game currency. The marketplace money can be purchased by shelling over some real world cash or earned by spending more time in the game (either the create or play side). Money earned is slow but we jumped into the game with the $40 Starter Pack and only felt the need to spend currency on one or two irresistible items. If you don't want to spend any real money on the game, you will need to work with just the basics for quite a few ...

For people like me who aren’t creative in the same way that Project Spark encourages, it’s also great to see that it’s possible to take any map already created and remix it and add your own touches. It probably errs on the side of plagiarism too, but Project Spark does a good job at giving credit where credit is due. The “lineage” feature tracks remixes of a level back to its original creator which is a feature that seems simple but one I really appreciate. As you’d expect, there’s all kinds of typical community features like user ratings and whatnot too.