Let’s make a game in World Builder!

Streamed from March 31, 2023 to Present

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

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Let’s make an adventure game together in World Builder!

Watch on YouTube

Part 1

Friday, March 31, 2023

Let’s make our own adventure game together in World Builder! 🌎✍️

Part 2

Friday, April 7, 2023

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

Friday, April 14, 2023

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

Friday, April 21, 2023

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

Friday, April 28, 2023

Our World Builder game now has: weird little PDA, bookshelf with decorative skull. Come by and help make up joke book titles!

Part 6

Sunday, April 30, 2023

Bonus World Builder stream! Stop by and say hello while I work on our adventure game?

Part 7

Friday, May 5, 2023

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 8

Friday, May 12, 2023

Game have cat now.

Part 9

Sunday, May 14, 2023

Join me for some chill Sunday afternoon World Building?

Part 10

Friday, May 19, 2023

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! 🍬