Let’s make a game in World Builder!
William C. Appleton created Enchanted Scepters for the original Macintosh in 1984. It was one of the first point-and-click adventure games ever made. To help him create he made World Builder, the first multimedia authoring tool. World Builder was released by Silicon Beach Software in 1986, allowing anyone with a Mac to create adventure games. It was released as freeware in 1995, making it free to download.
World Builder games have a window for graphics and a window for text. You can interact with them by clicking on the scene image, choosing commands from menus, or typing in the text area. Games are made up of scenes, characters, objects, and sound effects. World Builder uses a simple scripting language and predefined variables that can only store numbers.
I experimented with World Builder when I was younger, and I wanted to share this interesting piece of gaming history with more people. I thought it would be fun to make a small game on stream, and I had so much fun working on it that I spent over a year on the project. The game we made is called Transfer Point, and it will be released soon. This series is still ongoing—I am currently painting cover art for the game on my Friday streams.
- World Builder 1.2 on Applefritter
You’ll need an older Mac or emulator to use it. The freeware release includes additional documentation by Ray Dunakin, and a demo that shows advanced functionality. - World Builder Manual on Museum of Computer Adventure Game History
Various documents that came with the program, including a 17.1MB PDF of the manual. - World Builder on Wikipedia
- William Appleton (entrepreneur) on Wikipedia
- The Secret History of Mac Gaming by Richard Moss
This wonderful book includes an excellent chapter on World Builder. - The Ray’s Maze Page
World Builder games by Ray Dunacan and an alternate download of World Builder. - Lucy’s Worlds
World Builder games by Louise Hope, along with updated versions you can play in your browser.
Teaser
Let’s make an adventure game together in World Builder!
Part 1
Let’s make our own adventure game together in World Builder! 🌎✍️
Part 2
You’re standing at a bus stop. Beyond it lies a starless void. To the east is an abandoned library. Something is jammed in the book drop. Help decide what’s next in our World Builder game! 🌎✍️
Part 3
Our World Builder game has: dog, normal guy, soup bone. Our game does not have: pettable dog, flushable toilet. Let’s fix this.
Part 4
Continuing work on our World Builder game! Can you pet the dog? Yes. Can you flush the toilet? Of course. Now we need my own requirement for a great video game: a weird little computer you can use.
Part 5
Our World Builder game now has: weird little PDA, bookshelf with decorative skull. Come by and help make up joke book titles!
Part 6
Bonus World Builder stream! Stop by and say hello while I work on our adventure game?
Part 7
Wrote a lot of code in World Builder last week, let’s see if we can make a lot of art tonight? P.S. New LiL*sWeETiE emote 🍬
Part 9
Join me for some chill Sunday afternoon World Building?
Part 10
Somehow last time it took three hours to program turning a light off? Hopefully today will be more productive, it’s time to design an email interface! 🍬
Part 12
Email sucks. Let’s go to the mall ~ #LiLsWeETiE
Part 13
It’s time for more World Buildin’… and also a preview of the Playdate port of our game?? 💛✨
Part 14
It’s World Builder time! Last week I drew a secret potato hidden in a book just to give you an idea of the sort of things you can expect over here.
Part 15
I learned a weird thing about how World Builder works and I would love to share it with you! Also let’s draw a plant.
Part 16
I need the warm comfort of a classic Macintosh. Let’s unbox the Mac Plus I just bought then turn some pixels on and off in MacPaint.
Part 17
You’re at a bus stop. It looks nice from a distance. Beyond the bus stop is complete darkness. There are paths leading off to the east and west.
