Angry Snowman: Build an “Angry Birds” Game From Scratch – Setup and Shooting

In this two-part tutorial, I’ll walk you through building a winter-themed Angry Birds-style game, from scratch, using the free GameSalad Creator tool. No previous programming or game development experience is required, and you can follow along whether you’re on Windows or OS X!

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Play the Game

You can also play this game on the GameSalad Arcade.

Use the arrow keys to aim the cannon, and the space bar to fire. (Hold it down to add more power to your shot.) Destroy all of the blocks to win!

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Download GameSalad Creator

GameSalad Creator is a tool for creating games without needing to write any code. The free version allows you to develop games for the web (as seen above) and for Mac – and even for the iPhone App Store, if you have an iOS Developer account.

There’s also a paid version, which lets you export your games for Android, add iAds and in-app purchases, tweet players’ scores to Twitter, and more. For this tutorial, all you need is the free version.

Download the free version here. It only requires an email address and confirmation that you are over 13, and is available for Mac OS X Lion (and above), Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

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Watch the Screencast

Watch in full screen at 720p (use the Cog icon) for best quality.

Download the source file zip for this tutorial – it contains the graphic files, image files, and final project files for the game.

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Part Two…

We’ll publish the second part of the tutorial later this week. Keep up to date by following us on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.