A nice program for students to create games without having to know code.
Community Review for Stencyl
My Take
Similar in format to Weebly or PowToon (easy, drag & drop, etc.). Lots of tutorials available, both video & screenshot, created by users and the vendor. I don't think you'd be able to use Stencyl with students younger than 7th grade, unless you have a lot of very tech-savvy students who could help others. Creating a basic game is fairly easy, especially if coupled with a tutorial. Techy high schoolers would have few problems, especially if they worked together. There are extremely useful video tutorials, and I had a tutorial on one screen, and the program on the other and just went back & forth mimicking the tutorial.
How I Use It
This is SO much better than having the kids create a physical game. They will learn some real-world skills instead of glue stick skills! Would be great as a group project, but I'm not sure how that would work since the program is downloaded to a computer, not cloud-based. But creating a game as a group requires lots of discussion, planning, and wonderful group dynamics.