Tektoma

Tektoma is a computer game making website. Getting a subscription to Tektomaallows you to set your student, 7-17 free on the site to make his own game. There are hours of tutorials to help him figure this brave new world out.

For this review, I recruited a 7th grade boy. I recruited this boy, Micah, because he knows a thing or two about computers, programming, and gaming. I however know a big fat 0 about such things. Micah is a homeschooled student of my sister in law and this was their report.

My Sister in Law reported that Micah was a little slow getting into the gist of how this all worked and commented that to really get off the ground with it, you have to devote about 3 or 4 hours in one sitting to get going. After that you can just jump on and work with your game as much or as little as you have time for.

My SIL said that this is a nice activity for between subjects or for during a school break when you don’t want your student’s brain to turn to mush but you’re not actively doing school. One thing my SIL did not appreciate is that during the process of making the game, between steps, there were always offers and encouragement for you to sign up for extras for extra cost. She felt that if you were paying for a subscription to a site, she would not appreciate her students always being encouraged to upgrade.

Here is Micah’s review, in his own words.

Tektoma is fun after you find out the correct way to install it. First you have to unzip the resource pack which takes a while. Then the person speaking takes hours to make a game and not many people have that time. You then also have to switch from screen to screen to make your game while the instructor talks. The yoyo games thing gamemaker uses keeps nagging you to upgrade to the pro version which costs about $20. But getting to make the game is worth these challenges and the instructor is an excellent guide.

This gamemaker is very addictive. Until you complete your game you will keep logging on and trying to finish. The graphics are usually pretty good except for the select few. The instructor almost always tries to explain what each button does so that it's easier to make your own game. I would give this system an eight out of ten. This was a fantastic system and I would say all kids in 7th and up would enjoy this program. This program would be overwhelming for most kids under 7th grade.

Pricing is as follows:
$14.95 per month or
$140 per year

You can go here to find out more about Tektoma, or sigh up for their 14 day free trial, and you can click on the icon below to see what others had to say about it.

Happy Homeschooling!