A lot of gamers out there have dreamed of making their own games some day, but for most, the idea has always remained nothing but a pipedream. Up until now, the main hurdle has always been the requirement to learn some sort of programming language, something most average gamers just aren’t up to, whether it be the time or difficulty constraints of learning.

Enter YoYoGames.com, a start-up games company that has set its sights on changing how we think about casual gaming. Not just playing them, but also making them. The company’s website hosts user developed and published game content, which can then be rated and reviewed by fellow users in a very easy to use format. Games can even be played from your web browser without downloading an actual executable game file! Think of it as a YouTube for casual games, and if you’ve never heard of it before, it’s growing like a wildfire.

For the creation of games, the site provides free downloads of the company’s proprietary Game Maker software, which is currently in its seventh release, as well as several in depth tutorials that will have even the most inexperienced beginner creating games in no time. The software is very user friendly, making it easy to wrap your brain around the concept of game creation, using visual drag and drop commands to “program” the game. Zero coding experience required. The community even hosts ready to use art and sound assets for open use by those not so artistically inclined. In the words of Prof. Mark Overmars, the software’s creater and one of YoYoGames.com’s founding members, “Game Maker has been empowering people, often with no previous programming experience, to create sophisticated casual games since 1999.”

“Game Maker is undeniably more powerful and flexible than Flash and unlike Flash has been designed from the outset to be an environment that is uniquely purposed for game development,” he added. YoYoGames.com just recently celebrated its 100,000th registered user in 10 months. In that short time it has become, by all estimations, the biggest casual games developer community in the world. That is a major milestone for them and it’s just the beginning. Only a month and a half ago, they surpassed 10,000 game uploads in their first 200 days since starting up the website. Head on over and check out their latest game making competition where a total of $1750 in cash prizes has been thrown up for the best game entries!

What do you think about the prospect of it being that much easier for more people to create their own games? Does the world need more casual games, or is this all just a new fad?