Tiny online game engines

A Tiny Online Game Engine (TOGE) is an online tool that allows designers to create small games of a certain genre quickly and easily, often without programming. This paper explores the current landscape of TOGEs by examining three of the most popular engines currently available online: Twine, PuzzleScript, and Bitsy. Each of these tools streamlines the game development process by defining a strict set of constraints affecting the rulesets, aesthetics, and experiences of the games created with it. The design constraints of each engine are examined along with each engine's interface, its design philosophy, a sampling of games published with it, and information gathered from developers who use it. Included in this study is the metadata from 5,001 games and survey results from 163 game developers. Analyzing these engines from a variety of perspectives may help future tool creators identify strategies for making game development more beginner-friendly, accessible, inclusive, and fun.