I really made a mistake in buying this game. I played a bit of the demo and thought that it would be fun and easy to poke around with since I love programming. What I got was frustrating and not worth my time.
Experience:
Game Builder Garage isn't exactly a game and is more of a learning tool. Teaching is what the game sets out to do and unfortunately I didn't think it was very good at it. Game Builder Garage has a set of tutorials teaching the player how to build a variety of game types like racing, platformers, side-scrolling shooters, and more. In between the tutorials are extremely simple tests on what the previous tutorial covered. The tutorials are very, very rigid and hold the player's hand for far too long. There is sometimes copious amounts of dialogue just to get the player to do something very simple. They don't let the player experiment either. The only adjustments or playtesting allowed are at times specifically dictated by the tutorial. Even at the end when the tutorial allows the player to "edit however they want", there is very little freedom to modify anything. Sure, this was probably done so that players couldn't drastically mess something up, but advancing to the next step isn't even possible without everything being in perfect order anyways. I was never able to learn why something must be like this or what happens if you do this. None of the tutorials have stuck with me and I have almost completely forgot how to do anything besides attaching some buttons to a controllable object.
After the tutorials are over, there is a set of 50 tests the game gives the player as a bonus. At first I found them to be quite fun but over time they quickly became boring and confusing. These post-tutorial tests often included complex tools the tutorials never taught players how to use. There is no sort of guide for them or anything. I had to beat most tests purely with trail-and-error. I eventually quit on a vague puzzle with two clocks after nothing I did seemed to affect it in any way.
Game Builder Garage is hardly even a good creation tool. Great things can definitely be made in it, as demonstrated by the internet, but don't expect to make anything especially personalized or complex. I wanted to try to make something of my own so I settled on an obstacle course with the car. After fighting with the game to let me make a ramp the car could even drive onto, I quickly found out the car had very little physics and it sadly dropped straight to the ground as soon as it drove off the ramp. There isn't any way to program it to make it do a cool jump off the ramp either. I went on to try to make a few other things to no avail. Maybe if you have previous programming experience you can make do with what is there, but if you don't then I'm not sure it's really worth trying to aim for anything greater than mundane.
It's also worth noting that it's impossible to browse other user creations. They all must be found and downloaded with a code.
Conclusion:
If you want to learn to make a game with a game, look elsewhere. The best option out there is undeniably Dreams. If you don't have a PS4/5, Mario Maker is a good tool for making 2D platformers that is limited but is still user-friendly and gives the player an adequate amount of freedom.
Experience:
Game Builder Garage isn't exactly a game and is more of a learning tool. Teaching is what the game sets out to do and unfortunately I didn't think it was very good at it. Game Builder Garage has a set of tutorials teaching the player how to build a variety of game types like racing, platformers, side-scrolling shooters, and more. In between the tutorials are extremely simple tests on what the previous tutorial covered. The tutorials are very, very rigid and hold the player's hand for far too long. There is sometimes copious amounts of dialogue just to get the player to do something very simple. They don't let the player experiment either. The only adjustments or playtesting allowed are at times specifically dictated by the tutorial. Even at the end when the tutorial allows the player to "edit however they want", there is very little freedom to modify anything. Sure, this was probably done so that players couldn't drastically mess something up, but advancing to the next step isn't even possible without everything being in perfect order anyways. I was never able to learn why something must be like this or what happens if you do this. None of the tutorials have stuck with me and I have almost completely forgot how to do anything besides attaching some buttons to a controllable object.
After the tutorials are over, there is a set of 50 tests the game gives the player as a bonus. At first I found them to be quite fun but over time they quickly became boring and confusing. These post-tutorial tests often included complex tools the tutorials never taught players how to use. There is no sort of guide for them or anything. I had to beat most tests purely with trail-and-error. I eventually quit on a vague puzzle with two clocks after nothing I did seemed to affect it in any way.
Game Builder Garage is hardly even a good creation tool. Great things can definitely be made in it, as demonstrated by the internet, but don't expect to make anything especially personalized or complex. I wanted to try to make something of my own so I settled on an obstacle course with the car. After fighting with the game to let me make a ramp the car could even drive onto, I quickly found out the car had very little physics and it sadly dropped straight to the ground as soon as it drove off the ramp. There isn't any way to program it to make it do a cool jump off the ramp either. I went on to try to make a few other things to no avail. Maybe if you have previous programming experience you can make do with what is there, but if you don't then I'm not sure it's really worth trying to aim for anything greater than mundane.
It's also worth noting that it's impossible to browse other user creations. They all must be found and downloaded with a code.
Conclusion:
If you want to learn to make a game with a game, look elsewhere. The best option out there is undeniably Dreams. If you don't have a PS4/5, Mario Maker is a good tool for making 2D platformers that is limited but is still user-friendly and gives the player an adequate amount of freedom.