GameSalad was created with the idea that game prototyping and development should be almost as much fun as the game you are creating. With that in mind, most things in GameSalad are possible by simply dragging and dropping or double-clicking. We’ve tried to make it as intuitive as possible. While some logical thinking and technical knowledge is necessary for any game development, we have tried to make the creation of interactions easy for the non-programmer. Many behaviors can simply be dragged onto actors and tested while the game is playing. Multiple rules can also be added to each actor to test for conditions such as keyboard and mouse input, changed attributes, and collisions with other actors.

GameSalad consists of four simple editors: the Project Editor, the Scene Editor, the Actor Editor, and the Preview Player. At all times, you can use the forward, back, and home Toolbar buttons like a web browser to navigate your game project, while the restart, play, fullscreen and publish to web buttons work only for the scene editor.

Learn more about the Toolbar on the Main Toolbar Reference page.

This editor allows you to change the game title, description, and thumbnail to be displayed on the GameSalad website. It also allows you to create, delete and access all scenes in the current project, as well as browse all actors in the current project.

Learn more about the Project Editor from the Project Editor Reference page.

This editor allows you to compose the initial state of all the actors in your scene. It’s comprised of an attribute pane (hidden by default), an actor prototype pane, a tabbed resources pane (with access to project behaviors, images and audio), as well as a scene preview pane. The majority of your development time will be spent in the scene editor, accessing and tweaking various aspects of your scene.

The basic interactions in the scene editor are:

• importing images to be used on actors

• creating actors

• adding, removing or changing game or scene level attributes

• dragging actor prototypes to the scene preview (where they become actor instances)

• dragging behaviors to actors prototypes or to actor instances

• double clicking actor prototypes or instances to change the behavior settings on them

• playing back and testing your game interactions

Learn more about the Scene Editor from the Scene Editor Reference page.

This editor consists of an attribute viewer/editor pane, a tabbed resources pane (identical to the one found in the Scene Editor), an actor preview, and a Rule Composer pane. The Rule Composer is the true “meat” of GameSalad, allowing you to create new interactions by combining behaviors and setting conditions that will trigger behaviors.

The basic interactions in the actor editor are:

• add or change attributes

• change the image associated with an actor

• add behaviors and compose rules to create the interactions in the game

Learn more about the Actor Editor from the Actor Editor Reference page.

This “editor” allows you to play back your entire game starting with the initial scene. Like the Scene Editor, you can pause and rewind your game, but be aware it will always reset to the initial scene. The Preview Player also allows you to take a game screenshot for the GameSalad web site, debug your game (*), view it fullscreen(*), and browse to specific scenes in your game.

The basic interactions in the preview player are:

• play, pause and reset game

• browse to specific scenes in the game

• take a game screenshot for sharing your game on the GameSalad web site

• view the debug console ( currently inactive )

• view the game fullscreen ( currently inactive )

Learn more about the preview player from the Preview Player Reference page.