Favorite non-games

[J T]

I like when companies take a risk on videogame consoles and develop something that is more about creating rather than playing. There's Mario Paint (which there's a great article for on this site) as an obvious example.

Recently, I picked up a copy of Magix Music Maker for a simple $10 bucks new. I do more professional audio production on software like Reason and Logic, but I thought this looked like it would at least be fun to own as a novelty if nothing else. While it doesn't stand up to the power of professional ware, at only $10 MSRP it is an incredibly good deal for what you get. There are loads of samples and effects. You can sequence your own drum beats and melodic lines. You can even edit videos to go along with your song (this is the feature that ultimately sold me because the pro audio equipment doesn't do anything like this unless you sync it up with a video mixing program).

I also downloaded RPG Maker XP, but I find it a bit daunting. I could do it if I had more time or a team of interested and creative gamer friends, but as it stands I have neither.

Anyway, what are some of your favorite non-games out there? Maybe there are some I don't know about.

[Ziggy]

Mario Paint was probably one of the best things I could have had as a child. My brother and I got real creative with it. We'd make "movies" with it. Using a VCR to record, we'd make animation scenes with music added, pausing it in between. Some times we'd mix in clips from other games to make the movie better. Any way, I went from writing music on Mario Paint to writing music in midi composers and on actual instruments.

Mario Paint was one of the best things in video game history, in my opinion. Leave it to Nintendo to come up with something like that. I vote for Mario Paint Wii, why the hell aren't they working on that? They don't even need to create a mouse device, they already have the remote!

[aaron]

i spent a lot of time with art alive and wacky worlds on the genesis. i'd do the same kinds of things, making movies and such. i was always really jealous of people who had mario paint, though. we were a sega family when i was growing up. it wasn't until much later that i finally got an snes but when i had it, i never did acquire mario paint.

always wanted to get into RPG maker but never spent the time.

[corn619]

Sometimes the most creative stuff comes from the simplest of tools.

[Haoie]

For music generation?

On the PS1 alone there are Music, Music 2000, and Fluid. All very good.