Table Of Contents

0. CONTENTS
1
Table Of Contents
This Issue
It's truly amazing how fast time really goes. This time
last year, GMTECH had released it's first issue. Look at
us now, we have released our 10 th issue and are the
longest current running magazine. GMTECH has now
set a goal, a goal that we thought wouldn't be
accomplished back when issue 4 was in production.
But enough about how far we've come, let's talk about
what we have in store for you.
This issue we've got a number of great exclusives
which you will want to check out. First we've got a
preview of Barnstormer Beta 2 created by the
BlueBind Development Team, and an interview with
Jesper about the game. Next we have a preview of the
latest version of Conflict Arcade developed by Rhys
Andrews. We then have a exclusive interview with
Mark Overmars, the creator of Game Maker, about the
future Game Maker has. Finally we have a preview of
the new MusicLib website and some insight into some
new games.
If that's not enough, this issue also has 9 casual
articles and 7 development articles which will provide
excellent reading material for you.
So what modifications come with this issue? Well there
are a few. For issue 10 we have given the magazine a
colder, frosted look. We have introduced results for
the User Opinion article and have added a new
section: “Exclusives”. However we have some bigger
news that isn't related to changes inside the magazine
itself. As of issue 10, we have introduced a new
service: GMTECH Wiki. This service is aimed at
providing some of the magazine content online and
allows for it to be commented on. Finally we have
changed the website's host and moved our forum from
the IPB software to the SMF software.
What's next? Well we'll have to see what 2008 brings.
We hope that 2008 will be a good year for Game
Maker with it's upcoming updates. As for the rest of us
Game Maker users, we should all aim to produce
higher quality games. Doing so could raise the
reputation of Game Maker and make it an even more
popular game development tool.
Lastly check out our slogan competition on page 38.
By just making one banner you could earn yourself $5.
Please send us your feedback from this issue.
Gmjab
Editor
1. ARTICLES
What's Going On.....................................................................2
Beginner's Guide to the GMC..................................................3
2D Games – Are They Outdated?...........................................5
Tools of the Trade..................................................................5
10 Ways to Stay Motivated.....................................................7
Increase the Replay Value of Your Game...............................8
The Problem with Online GM Games......................................9
Clichéd Gaming.......................................................................9
Game Maker ActiveX – Your Active choice?..........................10
Mini-Games in Games...........................................................10
User Opinion-What do you think about GM porting to Mac?.12
2. GMDEV
Making Better Game Graphics..............................................14
Level Design.........................................................................15
Why and How to use Surfaces..............................................16
Environment Variables..........................................................17
Create your own simple language in GML.............................17
Tutorial: Auto Write Text......................................................20
Tutorial: Arc Angled Text.....................................................20
Tutorial: List Files.................................................................21
Tutorial: Highlight................................................................22
Pixel Tutorial........................................................................22
Weapon Spriting with Paint Tutorial.....................................23
3. EXCLUSIVES
Exclusive: Barnstormer BETA 2............................................24
Exclusive: Interview with Jesper about B.S..........................25
Exclusive Review: Conflict Arcade........................................27
Exclusive Interview with Mark Overmars..............................28
Exclusive: MusicLib...............................................................30
Insight Into: CSW.................................................................30
Insight Into: Oi.....................................................................31
Insight Into: Chalk...............................................................32
Insight Into: Schism.............................................................33
Insight Into: Purple..............................................................34
Insight Into: HexBall............................................................34
4. GAMES & REVIEWS
Review: Megaman Paradise..................................................35
Review: The Demon Within..................................................36
Review: Pure Action CTF......................................................37
5. EXTRAS
New Year's Resolutions.........................................................38
Money Giveaway...................................................................40
The Game Maker Race Results.............................................40
Comic....................................................................................41
Adverts.................................................................................42
Closing..................................................................................43
Staff
Gamez93.......GMTECH Owner
gmjab............Magazine Editor
Rup13.............Assistant Editor
Medieval................Researcher
GMmarine..............Researcher
mememe.......................Writer
TheMagnitude...............Writer
Polystyrene Man............Writer
Bendodge......................Writer
HalfMillennium..............Writer
Christian Sciberras........Writer
the9thdude...............Reviewer
Paul23......................Reviewer
Hiyukantaro.....Tutorial Writer
Bob–11500K........Comic Artist
NAL......................Proofreader
eagleprof..............Proofreader
Online
Website...............www.gamemakertech.info (gmtech.vlexo.net )
Wiki............www.gamemakertech.info/wiki/ (gmtech.vlexo.net )
Forum.....www.gamemakertech.info/forum/ (gmtech.vlexo.net )
Email............................................gmtech.magazine@gmail.com
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1. ARTICLES
2
What's Going On
GM Tech: Wiki
The introduction of the GM Tech Wiki has come, there has
been a gap in the top right corner of the GM Tech Website
for a while, but it is now filled with the link to the Wiki, as
planned a few months ago. The point of the Wiki is to allow
you to view certain bits of content without having to
continuously open up the whole issue. We also added it so
that game/program creators can directly link to the review
of their application, allowing game players to see how good
it is. Furthermore, each piece of content that is on the Wiki
has a separate ‘Comment’ system, where everyone can
comment on each article, and have their questions
answered by the writers of the article or review. Content
will typically be added 5 –10days after the issue is released,
and will not contain any images, so if you want the full
formatting, you will have to check out the PDF.
GM Tech: GM Race Is Finished
Since it started we all thought that it will be a great contest
for many to enjoy and take part in. Luckily, we were right.
GM Tech and MarkUp decided to join forces to create the
ultimate contest – The GM Race. After head-to-heads and
voting stages, we can reveal to you the winner of the
contest. Turn to page 38 to find out the winner.
GM Tech: Staff Changes
Over the last few months, there has been a lot of changes
to the team members, some have quit due to giving up GM,
or not having time to focus on the magazine, and others
have joined, looking for new challenges to write and to
entertain you. The staff list now reads as:
YoYo Games: Contest, Contest, Contest!
Over the last few months, members of the YoYo Games
team have been asking for us to vote for them in various
contests. As always, the GMC was ready to lend a helping
hand, and they got straight over there. However, someone
was just a little bit too overexcited, and voted numerous
times in one contest, breaking the rules.
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gamez93
gmjab
Rup13
bendodge
TheMagnitude
paul23
Polystyrene Man
HiyuKantaro
the9thdude
GMmarine
mememe
Bob - 11500k
Medieval
Christian Sciberras
keysle
NAL
eagleprof
GM Tech: New Site and Forum
Any of you who have read GM Tech Magazine for a long
time, and visit the website and forum, will know that we
have made a lot of changes in order to bring to you the best
possible experience, so here are a few more…
Our host was always going down from time to time, so we
decided that the best thing to do will be to move host, so
you can now access the new GM Tech website via this link
http://www.gamemakertech.info , however it may take some
time for the NS to fully update, so you may still see the old
website. If you do, then you can visit the website on the
sub domain – http://gmtech.vlexo.net.
Not only do we have a new host, but we also have a forum
system, so we host the forum under the domain, giving a
more professional feel. We were unable to install a backup
of the old forum onto the new forum, so you will first need
to register before you can make contributions. Enjoy!
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Hopefully we will be back again next year, giving away more
prizes.
GM Tech: A Small Break
Instead of releasing issue 11 at the start of February, we
will be taking a break. GMT will be spending this extra time
developing our magazine design further for 2008. So you
can expect to see the next issue around March.
Because of this, on Dec 13 2007, YYG was disqualified from
the contest, however a mere one day later, Mark Overmars
posted ‘The people at Mashable have decided to move YoYo
Games directly through into the final voting round, without
having to pass through the current round.’ That’s the world
on competitions for you.
YoYo Games: Winter Contest
The deadline for submissions for YYG Winter Contest entries
ended a few days ago. There was just under 232
submissions, all of their creators hoping to scoop one of the
large cash prizes (The winner receives US $1000, the
second place US $500 and the third place US $250). There
was much discussion about the rules, and how they will pick
the winning game, many questions have been answered,
but a few still remain in the air. Considering it’s the first
contest, it's been a quite good one. If you missed this one,
don’t worry, there is always next time.
Pure Action CTF Source Discount
For a limited time only you can get the source to Pure
Action CTF for $5($20 off). To buy the source simply
contact dmitko via PM or email with the promotional code
below in your message. dmitko will then provide further
instructions to donate the $5 via PayPal. Once the donation
has been processed, you will receive an email with a link to
the source. So get in quick before the offer ends. You can
find a review of PACTF on page 33.
Promo Code: “GMTPACTFDISC5”
1. ARTICLES
3
Beginners Guide To The
GMC By bendodge
Introduction
The Game Maker Community is a very exciting and helpful
place, but a new member shouldn't just jump in and start
posting. Very large communities like the GMC must enforce
a rather strict set of rules to maintain efficiency and order.
The very best way to learn the ropes is to read the forum
for about a week before you post anything, but nobody
wants to do that. So here is a brief guide to help get you
started.
Rules
There is a whole separate sub-forum for all the rules and
regulations of the forum, and you are supposed to read
them as well as the rules for each sub forum before posting
there. Below are the three rules most commonly violated.
Signatures
A signature is the little box underneath every post you make
that always displays the same content which you can set in
your control panel. Signatures are usually used as your
personal advertising space but there are limits on how
obnoxious you can make them. Signatures have a size limit
of 550x150 and the golden rule is that they shouldn't annoy
people. Moderators always have a right to remove or edit
your signature and complaining about it will not accomplish
anything. Special links and images that do things like log
you out, give you points for a game, or show connection
information (IP address, ISP, etc) are not allowed. Just try
to keep it sane.
Q&A
Asking a question in the Novice or Advanced sections is the
fastest way to get unstuck but it can't solve everything. You
should not ask questions like “how do I make a MMORPG?”
That's what tutorials are for. Questions should be very
specific and provide plenty of background information to
help others help you.
If you are a new user, you should probably post your
questions and answers in the Novice Q&A first, instead of
jumping to the Advanced Q&A. Unless you really know what
you are doing and have made several complete games your
question probably belongs in Novice. One thing that never
belongs in Advanced is a question that starts with “is it
possible”. It's not easy medicine to take, but most people
(including the Author) learn the hard way sooner or later.
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Avatars
Avatars are the little images to the side of your posts. As
with signatures, you don't have to have one, but most
people use them because they makes you easier to
recognize. Avatars can't be more than 64x64, and naturally
must follow the decency rules enforced on the rest of the
site. The best avatars are not ones that you get from a fan
game site but ones that you make yourself. Your own work
will express you better than someone else's. And speaking
of fan game sites, or any external site, make sure that the
site allows hotlinking of images or your avatar won't show
up correctly.
Double Posting
Double posting is when you you post two or more posts in a
row. It is generally not allowed but there are a few times
that this is acceptable. One is when you are asking a
question in a Q&A forum and you have not had an answer
after three days. (You really do need to wait three days,
and this is enforced.) You can also post if you have some
information or an update to add. The only other time you
can double post is in a game topic when you have released
a new version of your game.
Far better than double posting is editing your previous post.
This can be done by clicking the small Edit button at the
bottom right of your post.
The Community
The Community subforum is for general discussions, sort of
like an on-topic chat. You must keep your posts on topic
and the topic must be Game Maker or GMC related. Most
topics here are related to current events, game styles,
forum problems, programming techniques, demographics,
etc.
One thing that shouldn't be here is a host of topics
complaining about problems with Softwrap. Nobody likes
Softwrap, but posting in the community forum about it will
get you nowhere. Only YoYo Games and Softwrap can help
you with registration.
Also, introductions and farewells are not allowed in the
Community subforum. It's not because people don't care it's because there are far too many people on the forum to
allow that kind of thing (imagine what would happen if even
a small fraction of the membership started posting such
topics). If you want socialization, get it by joining satellite
communities such as the Game Maker Off-Topic or 64Digits.
Another issue that you shouldn't complain about is server
error messages. The GMC is run on a dedicated server and
it is already expensive to maintain. If there was an easy fix
it would have been done.
1. ARTICLES
4
Beginner's Guide to the GMC (Continued)
WIP and Creations
So, you've made your fabulous game and want someone
else to try it? Here's the place to put it. If your game is
complete, it belongs in Creations; incomplete games belong
in the WIP (Work in Progress) section.
Games that get the most replies are usually games with
well-constructed topics. Rhys Andrews has written a
complete guide to this, so I'll just mention some basics.
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Use screen shots (the more the better, but don't
put huge images directly in the topic – use links).
State the name, version, objective and controls.
Be very polite and use correct grammar and
spelling. This will have a major influence on your
topic.
Make sure that you use a reliable file host and
avoid hosts that don't provide direct links.
Use an attractive topic layout with a banner and
sections marked off with the Drag 'n' Drop icons.
(Click Show All under the smilies list when
composing your topic).
Do not ask to become a staff member. This is a fast way to
guarantee that you will never be one.
Senior Members
These are the people who have been around for a while and
know the other regulars. Almost everyone enjoys delusions
of grandeur after a few weeks on the forum, but you will
quickly realize that it takes months or years to become wellknown. If and when you become a regular, you will know it
because other regular members know you by name. Don't
wait around for it to happen; start coding and helping
others if you want attention.
Remember, the key here is a to cater to your players as
much as possible, and don't expect more than a page or two
of replies.
Sometimes someone will start a popularity contest in the
Community forum. Just report them and ignore them. The
GMC does not have a user ranking system, and it is not an
accident.
Staff
The Game Maker Community has a small army of admins
and moderators dedicated to keeping a clean house. (You
can see a complete list by clicking the link at the top of the
“Board Statistics” box on the front page).
It's very tempting to PM a well-known person and ask for
help. Some will help you, others won't. Usually people that
don't mind being PMed will say so in their signature. Your
best bet is almost always to ask your question in a Q&A
forum, so consider that your first resort.
Moderators are tasked with patrolling all the topics
throughout the forum and responding to reports. They are
usually helpful if you PM them a question, but it is very bad
etiquette to ask them for coding help. That's what the Q&A
forums are for.
Close
The Game Maker community is a fun and friendly place as
long as you do your part to be a good citizen. This means
abiding by the rules and helping others. So invite your
nerdy friends and enjoy the wonderful art of game making.
Also, do not PM or email Mark Overmars with anything that
is not very important. He will not answer scripting questions
of any kind. You would contact him if, for example, you
found a security hole or a bug in GM.
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A popular form of entertainment is arguing with staff
members about warnings and other staff decisions. This is
not very effective and will only get you laughed at. So don't
do it. In the unlikely event that there is a gross
misunderstanding, you might very politely PM a moderator
and explain your situation, but one appeal is all you're likely
to get.
1. ARTICLES
5
2D Games – Are
Outdated? By GMmarine
They
The father of 3D games, 2D games, is sadly starting to
show it's age, in the same way as your dad. 2D games are
quite simply, getting too old. Everyone one has got to die
someday, but this is not the case with 2D! 2D isn't human
so it doesn't have to die. In my opinion 2D games have got
a long life ahead.
But to understand why 2D hasn't died yet, and are far from
being dead, I will lay down the facts for you.
At first we must get a little background information on 2D
games. The first game to enter the 2D genre was created in
1958 by William Higinbotham. This game's layout was
similar to tennis, or a kind of ping-pong, which involved two
players trying to get the ball past the other person's slider.
To us, this isn't really a game, but this game is prehistoric
and was great at the time. But as we all know, 2D games
have grown up since then, as Game Maker shows us.
Now that we have a little background information, we can
proceed. Of course we all know that 2D has its weaknesses,
but most importantly it has its strengths too. The best one
in my opinion is that 2D games are easier to program.
Because there are only two dimensions.
These dimensions consist of the x axis, which corresponds
to the horizontal line, and the y axis, which corresponds
with the vertical line. 3D as we know has the third
dimension, or Z-axis, for depth. Another one of the major
points is that graphics for 2D games are usually far easier
to create. Therefore less time is needed for the creation of
graphics, which can then be put into other aspects of the
game.
Another major point is that the overall cost to create 2D
games is reduced. This is because the company pays less
for the graphics artist, coders, etc... because they have to
work less time to get the game completed. Because of the
reduced costs, they are more favorable for indie game
developers.
It is one thing to just list the strengths of 2D, but that
doesn't mean that there aren't any weaknesses. The major
weakness is the illusion of reality that can be created by a
3D game. Our world is 3D, not 2D. So it is quite obvious
that 2D games create less of an illusion. We want the
adrenaline, the feel, the sense that we are actually there in
the cockpit of a plane or the battlefield of World War II.
The other weakness is that if you fail, it hurts more
financially. As I said earlier, 3D games are more costly to
make, and if your game doesn't do well, you end up losing
far more money than you would have if you had made a 2D
game.
So, quite simply, 2D games are not outdated, and 3D games
are not the king... yet. I expect a long life ahead for the 2D
genre.
Tools Of The Trade
By bendodge
Many Game Maker users are people who love to program,
but making a game isn't all programming; you must also
have a good batch of resources. Some people are fortunate
enough to have family members or friends who have a
knack for making artwork and sounds but most of us don't.
This means that we will either have to shell out cash for
professional designs or bite the bullet and make our own
resources. But you can't make resources out of nothing –
you must have some tools. First, be warned that there are
no “silver bullet” tools that will make everything a breeze,
although there are some free tools that can make the job
considerably easier.
Graphics
Most people (including me) use two types of sprites. For
pixel art I use Game Maker's built in editor. I am not a very
good pixel artist, and the built-in editor does everything I
need it to. For high-color sprites, backgrounds and tiles I
use GIMP. GIMP is a free image designer and editor that is
the open-source counterpart of Photoshop. GIMP isn't as
good as PS, but PS comes at a hefty price, and GIMP meets
most standard graphics needs.
Although I rarely work with video graphics, I do possess a
few tools that I like for this category. For video editing I
use Wax 2.0, which is a fairly simple graphical editor. For
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video conversions I use SUPER, which isn't really a video
converter. It is actually a front-end for a suite of free
codecs and encoders and it greatly simplifies all types of
video conversions. A powerful addition to SUPER is
AviSynth, which has an surprisingly robust (albeit complex)
scripting language that allows editing, muxing, etc. I also
use AVIQuick for assembling AVI files from bitmaps.
Occasionally I need 3D models, and for this I use the simple
tool Anim8or. Anim8or's capabilities are rather modest, but
it's one of the easiest tools for beginners (like me).
Advanced modelers will probably prefer a more powerful
tool such as Blender.
Sounds
For editing sound effects, Audacity pretty much does it all,
but I recommend that you download some additional plugins
if you use Audacity (especially if you want to do voice
effects). You definitely need to get the basic pack of 90
effects here . If you run Linux, you can also install the swhplugins package to get Steve Harris' massive library of
plugins.
For music, the free AnvilStudio is worth considering, but
remember that composing music requires more than just a
cool tool – you must have musical talent.
1. ARTICLES
6
Tools Of The Trade (Continued)
Misc
These are some
recommend:
miscellaneous
free
tools
I
would
Particle Designer is invaluable when making particle effects,
because you can instantly see the results of your changes.
It outputs GML scripts that you can import directly into your
game with little or no modification. Save early and often
with this tool though, because it is notoriously buggy and
unstable.
InnoSetup, along with some third-party addons like ISTool,
will let you make professional installers with powerful
capabilities and no nag screens.
Paint.NET is, as the name implies, a Paint replacement. It
isn't quite as powerful as GIMP, but it has a more traditional
interface that some people will prefer.
HelpMaker and HelpNDoc are the only free CHM tools I have
ever been able to find. Their interfaces can be a bit
daunting at times, but it is definitely worth the effort to
include a polished help file. HelpNDoc is only free for
personal use, so be careful about licensing issues.
HelpMaker is totally freeware and includes a handy button
maker tool.
Beneton Movie GIF and Skeleton are two animation tools
made with Game Maker. BMG is an extremely powerful
animation tool that is almost totally unrivaled in the
freeware world. Unfortunately, it is a resource hog, so don't
try it on your Windows 98 machine.
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Skeleton is a stick figure animator that allows you to set
images for different bones of your skeleton and then create
and render tweened animations.
I've also asked some makers of popular games what they
use to create their resources. I hope this provides an
interesting insight for you.
Interview with FredFredrickson
GMT: You have made some very polished games which have
enjoyed great popularity with players. What are some of the
tools that you use for making your game's resources,
specifically graphics and sounds resources?
FFN: “I'd say that two of my most used tools for graphics
are Photoshop and Truespace. I've been using PS for a long
time now, and I am very comfortable with how it works and
am able to do just about whatever I need with it. Truespace
has been a great help as well, allowing me to create models
and animations quickly and easily. Combine the two (with a
little help from UV Mapper, Marzipan, and some other
tools), and you've got a nice graphics suite to work with.
As far as sound goes, I mostly use the utilities that came
with an old sound card of mine, and find my sounds on
findsounds.com or sounddogs.com. Sounddogs.com isn't
free, but you can get a great deal of quality sound effects
for under $20.”
GMT: So would you recommend that people trying to make
high-quality games buy sound resources, instead of trying
to make their own?
FFN: “Well, if you're good at making sound effects, I'd take
that route for the things you know you can do - anything
that might net you some experience in a field you are
interested in is a good thing, as far as I am concerned. Of
course, not all of us have good recording equipment or guns
to fire off in a sterile recording environment, so for those
times, buying sound effects may be the right choice.”
GMT: Is there any advice you would give potential buyers as
far as license types go?
FFN: “If you're going to pull an image or sound off the
Internet, make sure you read the licensing agreement
carefully (if there is one). Especially if you're planning on
selling your creation.”
Interview with Rez:
GMT: Hello and thank you very much for being with us
today. We're talking about additional tools for making
games. What are some of the tools you use to make your
games' graphics and sounds?
REZ: “Game Maker's built-in sprite editor has always been
my weapon of choice for pixel art, although I do
occasionally use Paint Shop Pro for various effects and tile
wrapping. I'm not really a musician or foley artist but I
think Audacity is great for home brew sound FX.”
GMT: Do you ever purchase sound effects?
REZ: “Never. I figure those sound FX sites are meant for
flash and the sounds they carry aren't very fitting for a GM
game.”
1. ARTICLES
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10 Ways To Stay
Motivated By Polystyrene Man
Motivation seems to be a common problem for anyone
working on a game. Everyone has their high standards, the
picture of a perfect game engraved in their mind. But how is
it possible to stay motivated throughout game development,
especially when other game ideas start to creep in? Here
are some strategies:
Don’t set the bar to high
The most paralyzing thing you can do is set the standards
too high. Of course, sometimes it’s impossible not to think
of how great your finished product will be. Don’t let yourself
get away with this: Save the excitement for when the game
is actually done. The effects of setting the bar too high are
far-reaching, as well. In addition to slowing game
development, they keep you from improvising during game
development. Some games were destined for a different
course
(potentially
improving
motivation);
with
a
predetermined idealistic goal, this is impossible.
Attack it in pieces
Games are made of small parts. There’s the movement
engine, the AI, the physics engine, the HUD, and so on. It’s
best to fine-tune these things in their own separate .gmk
and then merge them into what will be the completed game.
This makes testing easier and faster, as it is not necessary
to load the entire game for testing purposes e.g. making
sure the text in your HUD is aligned correctly. How do you
eat an elephant? One bite at a time
Take breaks
Take breaks, and take them proudly. Don’t be “afraid” of
setting your project aside for a while. I’ve done this myself
and come back months later recharged and enthusiastic
about my work. Don’t even consider this as a last resort.
Breaks are healthy, and improve the overall quality of your
finished game (how good could will your game turn out if
you’re not even interested in making it?)
Start small
This ties in with not setting the bar too high. Start your
game small. Really small. With no expectations except to
add and add until you’ve decided the game is complete. A
good example would be in creating an adventure game: if
you start the game with the intention of creating a massive
world map, the chance of you finishing is not very large. If,
however, you begin by working on the first village, then
slowly expand outside that, the game will grow until you’re
satisfied. You can’t crack under the pressure if there is no
pressure.
Another example would be in creating games which have
levels: Don’t decide on making a 100-level game. Rather,
create the levels one-by-one, only stopping when you’ve
decided that you’re finished working on the game. Also
realize that no one’s going to play through all 100 levels of
a Game Maker game.
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Get a friend interested
Nothing is more motivating than having someone ask you
daily about how your game is coming along. Don’t fall into
the trap of working on a “secret project.” Outside support is
a requirement when it comes to motivation. Preferably,
choose a friend who is annoying and shares a common
interest in game making. If you don’t want to tear your hair
out every time your buddy asks you about your game, you
have failed to find a motivational friend.
Work with someone else
Even better than getting a friend interested is working with
that friend. Supposedly, this should halve the amount of
work you need to put into your game. Realistically, it turns
out to be quite different. As fate has have it, one person
will take the role of the worker while the other inherits the
job of the slacker. Working with someone else also means
you’ll have to share credit. For some people this is not
desirable. Just make sure you know your friend well.
Enter a contest
This is the easiest way to get motivated: Choose a contest
with a relatively short deadline, good prizes, and a theme
that you’re interested in. There’s more of an incentive to
finish, and in addition to your motivation levels going up,
there’s free publicity upon your game being published. Oh,
and of course - there’s always that possibility that you
might win. If this isn’t the most motivational thing you can
do, I don’t know what is.
Turn off the Internet
Log out of the GMC. Shut down Facebook. Get out of
MySpace. Turn off the Internet. Don’t work on a game with
the Internet open if it’s too much of a distraction. I speak
from experience on this one: My most productive times have
been without Internet access. If you’re anything like me,
any time you get into a snag in programming, you open up
the Internet “just to check in on things.” This is a
motivation-killer; nothing ever gets done.
Pray for a natural disaster
Okay, imagine this: You’re stuck inside your house because
some sort of natural disaster (or plague or something) has
struck your town. You can’t go to school, you can’t go to
work, you are unable to interact with other humans, the
Internet is down, etc. What are you going to do? Probably
work on Game Maker nonstop out of boredom. You’re bound
to come up with something.
Coffee
Nothing is more motivational than a big cup of black coffee.
It serves as both a fuel source and a reward. It also tastes
wicked good.
1. ARTICLES
8
Increasing The Replay
Value Of Your Game
By GMmarine
If you have similar tastes you'll occasionally put down your
PlayStation controller and whip out the classic Starcraft and
sacrifice your whole day for it. Why is that? To understand
how a game becomes re-playable over and over is actually
quite simple. This knowledge can be achieved in two ways closely observing a game which you enjoy playing over and
over (Starcraft for me), or reading what I've learned. Either
way you'll learn that, in order to get a game with good
replay value you need to combine all the aspects of a good
game - gameplay, graphics, and sound. So I suggest you
turn down the TV and music, take a good sip of coffee and
proceed reading.
A pretty obvious way to give your game a higher replay
value is to make it more random. Randomizing as many
things as possible will ensure many different outcomes. If
you fail a mission and have to redo it again, it won't be very
much fun if you already know what's going to happen. It
needs to be different. Say an enemy guard always patrols
this area at this particular time then change the timing or
just move the guard somewhere else. For instance, create a
number of locations on your map where you want guards to
be, let's say 15. When the room is being created one object
will create guards with only 8 guards being placed in any of
the 15 sites you picked. With this embedded into your game
it will be a little different each time. As you see, it can really
be this simple.
What key performs the double-over-the-side-triple-kick? Or
the regular punch? It can be questions like these that
prevents players from playing a game. In layman's terms, if
the controls are difficult, you won't want to put up with the
game.
Though it may sound unimportant at first, it is the simple
things that make the difference in a game sometimes. Do
you really want to use all 10 fingers to perform one action?
No! And that my friends just proves the point further.
Players want easy to use, simple controls that can get the
job done, there really is no need for holding down 8+ keys,
unless it is a game like Mortal Combat.
You may have the best controls of all but if there is no
wiggle room, it won't be as much fun. What do I mean by
wiggle room? Well, by wiggle room I mean space to roam
around in. No one wants to be stuck using a small area of
space. I don't and I'm sure claustrophobic people don't
either, as well as us gamers. For example, lets say you play
paint-ball on the weekends. Though you like your yard, you
want to try a place a little different. But when you get to
your destination, there isn't nearly as much room as you
thought. You thought you knew small, well, meet tiny.
Getting shot is made easy, and it is almost near impossible
to do any flanking maneuvers. Better yet, finding another
hiding spot is impossible! Same with a game. Although this
theory doesn't quite work with hallways as it does with open
spaces, don't limit your room size, increase it! Make
buildings a tad farther apart, and give way for more
breathing room and, of course, fun. With more room to
roam around in, the player wants to play the mission again,
wandering around looking for hidden “treasures” or places
they haven't explored yet.
8
Ah! The beautiful sound of the birds chirping, the uneasy
sound of the wind that gently sweeps the chirps away into
the distance. All is well until the sound of the 21st century
barges its way in as the tanks tracks crumble the
unsuspecting dirt that surrenders without a fight, leaving
only the trees as obstacles. In perfect unison, the guns
begin the singing of the horrid song that brings mother
nature's beauty to a halt, only interrupted by their smaller
brothers that try so hard to make their voice heard. It is
your time to act, wipe the sweat off and grab the bazooka...
Honk, honk! The illusion is over, yet it seemed like you were
there just minutes before reality snatched you back from
the virtual world. Some great games include a variety of
very realistic sounds that escape through your speakers to
your ears(I don't know where else they would go) to create
the perfect illusion. Adding random sounds is a good way to
spice up the mood and is actually quite simple.
If the real world has random sounds, like birds chirping
(which one is doing at this moment) and the sound of wind
vibrating huge sheets of metal, then hey, why not have
them in your game? These random sounds can't really hurt
your game, unless you have the birds chirping through the
whole mission. What would the world be without sound? A
rather difficult question, you have to depict a soundless
existence in the air, does your world sound bland? To me it
does and that is why sounds are so important in your game.
I mean come on, would someone like to play a game over
and over again if it is soundless? Of course not!
You may have the greatest sounds of all, but if there is no
creepy music to back it up, it is still a little bland. Though
music sometimes may be unnecessary, it carries the
moment along. Say you die, there needs to be a little dying
music and anything would be great, you know like the good
ol' Pacman dying music! We all know, or should by now,
what dying music sounds like. Something as simple as that,
which is easy to implement, and requires little or no effort
at all.
Aha, I have the sniper rifle! Now let me shoot that person.
But after I fire, it turns out that the gun I was holding was
actually a rocket launcher and now I'm dead. Tough luck.
No one wants to play a game over and over if there are 20
guns available to choose from, yet it looks like your
character is still using the same gun over and over again.
An essential part to get players to want to replay your game
is to have a variety of graphics. Like all the other parts you
shouldn't skimp out on this one. One way to achieve a since
of randomness in a game is to create different background
textures since we don't want to look at the same grass over
and over again. I mean, just a couple of different textures
would help. Maybe even make some dead grass? Whatever
you choose, different background textures can be quite easy
with the tile feature.
Now that you've been preached to (and I could've wrote
quite a bit more), I hope you take my advice!
1. ARTICLES
9
The Problem With Online
GM Games Submitted By Elmernite
There’s a problem with GM made online games. A big
problem. Sure, most of you remember trying to play one of
GM’s online games. Waiting for a game to get started and
the thrill of finding one... But when was the last time you
played it? Have you played them in the last month? Two
months? Six months? What happened to anyone who logged
on wanting to play during those times? Can anyone play
anymore? Or has all of the hard work the makers put into
their game been wasted?
Sure, online games like “Aces High” had games going for a
while but then what? After 6 months, they’re all gone.
Remember “Sapphire Tears”? When it first came out, I saw
as many as three games running at the same time. Where
are all of those games and users now? I even played some
of those games for a while, but as servers and other players
started to become harder to find, I lost interest. So have
many other people who used to log on everyday and play.
It’s going to happen, of course; it always does, even with
normal games. The difference lies in the fact that normal
games can still be played even if no one else in the world
plays it anymore. Online games can’t.
Online games have a unique property: they require other
people to play with. This unique property is both what
makes them so much fun and what kills them off sooner
than other games – GM games, anyway. Sure people always
mention the “pros” of adding online to your game. But what
about the cons? Not only do online games require more
than one person, they must be on at the same time. This is
pretty easy when the game first launches, but after the
newness dies off and only fans of the game continue to
play, it rapidly becomes hard to find people. Once the fans
fail to be able to find games to play they too are forced to
quit or spend their time waiting and hoping that someone
logs on. Once this happens, the game is as good as dead
because the occasional player that the game will get now
has a very slim chance of finding someone else on.
Halo 3 has no problems you say. So why shouldn’t my Halo
fan-game work? The reason such large scale multiplayer
games work is because if even a fraction of the total players
log on each day, they’re bound to find people to play with.
Take Halo 2, which sold somewhere above the 5 million
mark. Now even if only .001 percent of the people who own
Halo 2 are on at any given moment, that’s 500 people,
which is enough to have some online matches. Apply those
same numbers to a GM game, to which we’ll give the
generous download amount of ten thousand. Now take .001
percent of that and you get 1. That, I’m afraid, isn’t enough
to have online matches – unless you like playing with me,
myself, and I.
Is it, then, worth the work and effort to make an online
game, or even add multiplayer to your offline game, if
within a few months it will be worthless? I guess to some
degree that depends on whether or not online programming
is hard for you or not. For someone like FredFredrickson,
who has written online games, and is good at it, he might
consider it worthwhile because for him it’s not that hard.
Take me, for example: having never made an online game I
was trying to add multiplayer support to my platform
shooter. Is it worth the months of effort and work to learn
multiplayer coding for a few months of online play? For me,
it just wasn’t. The more and more time I spent working on it
– tedious and confusing – the more and more I found
myself thinking about the other projects I had been
planning those “new, great ideas” we all just can’t wait to
start. That new graphic idea, that new story, that new
character, that new style or old style you hadn’t tried yet –
the things that fuel many independent freeware game
developers like me and maybe like you.
So, remember to ask yourself before you start coding that
multiplayer: is it worth it? Is it worth several months of
tedious coding and testing for a few months of game play,
or would you rather finish up the game and move on to your
next great idea? For you, it may be the simple answer “yes.”
But for those of you who find yourselves giving another
answer, remember the pros of not having online multiplayer
in your game.
Clichéd Gaming
By Polystyrene Man
When
video
games
were
first
being
developed,
programmers didn’t have to worry about some of the same
things that modern-day game designers do: Graphics and
sounds were limited and the gameplay was restricted to
simplicity. Oh, and being pioneers in the industry, they
didn’t have to worry about clichés.
Nowadays, familiar ideas are being used and reused. One
could argue that this is the natural flow of things - someone
has a good idea, others copy it and improve. Certainly, Sim
City 4 is an improvement on earlier games such as
Populous. We now have game companies that push
graphics, gameplay, and sounds to the limit. The Halo series
is a prime example - anyone who’s played Halo 2 or 3
knows of the incredible graphics and physics. Indeed,
games are evolving.
But here’s the thing: Game companies do not use Game
Maker. Game Maker is relatively slow and not suited for
“serious” games. This, coupled with the fact that most
9
Game Maker users opt to go solo, means that we have a
unique situation.
Game Maker cannot necessarily take part in the evolution of
older (now clichéd) games; it's games cannot compete with
the productions of large game companies. Game Maker has
nothing new to offer in terms of graphics - it is still
primarily suited for 2D game creation. Its sound editor is
hardly anything special. GML is a high-level language. The
point is this: No one is going to make a Halo 3 clone in
Game Maker. Nor should they.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. If anything, it’s a good
thing. Because we are using this “limited” game creation
program, we are forced to do something that game
companies are not forced to do: Be creative. We are at the
bottom of the game-creation food chain, just as the early
video games were. Time has shown that ideas – the stuff of
survival - are produced at a low level, then passed on and
magnified by the bigger animals. There’s a reason indie
game making is so celebrated.
1. ARTICLES
10
Clichéd Gaming (Continued)
This is the problem with clones in Game Maker. The
program itself does not have the ability to make a better
game than the original - or at least not make a better game
than paid programmers, musicians, and artists could. In the
grand scheme of things, there’s no improvement. There are
no new ideas. There are no graphical breakthroughs.
There’s no enhancement. There’s no evolution. In Game
Maker, clones are a dead end.
Game Maker is a perfect tool for hobbyists and indie game
developers and it should be used as such. Just as indie
music is often more original than the music of formulated
big bands, the potential for original games should be
celebrated. Let sheep be cloned, let good games be. Dear
Game Maker user, this is the best possible opportunity for
you to get your unique ideas into the world. Take advantage
of it.
Here’s a good cliché: Think outside the box.
Game Maker ActiveX
Your Active Choice?
–
By Christian Sciberras (Project coordinator)
What is GmX?
GmX is a new way to let people play your games inside
browsers – yes inside them. It offers unique features for the
game developer and the gamer alike. Basically it is like
YoYoGames' InstantPlay, but with a difference: it offers real
game-in-browser embedding and it could be used just about
anywhere (including XP and Vista), as long as it is installed.
Also, isn't it nice seeing your own game's loading screen
while GmX is loading? Yes, it also supports the use of
custom themes.
How did it start?
As with all programs, there is a reason how this started out.
Some time ago, the creator was criticized because of his
idea (of running GM games in browsers) not being practical.
After some time he decided to take the challenge. Some
problems with it delayed enough to let YYG develop their
own. Well they do get credit in making the first working
one...
What are the features?
Now this is the best part. What makes it so unique such that
it is far from near to a YYG clone? Everything, starting from
the very simple yet powerful game manager, simplicity of
use and dynamic. It is dynamic because it uses a master file
system to connect different but related data and files for
one game. This results in the possibility of using different
theme files, multiple downloads and even an installer based
game, which makes GmX download the required files. Other
features include: online based website and game filter, and
multiple file compression, so that it pinpoints the perfect
compression method for your game. The last but most
important feature is: GmX is free!
What are the challenges the team is facing?
The largest challenge of all is beating time. This feature-rich
software is constantly under heavy development. In fact
some functionality is disabled due to testing reasons. One of
the main problems encountered was the need to create
many sub-projects out of it, making it rather difficult to
maintain. Nevertheless, we received some very good
remarks on the released betas from various highly respected
members giving us the spirit to move on. Lastly, I would
like to publicly thanks these persons and all on the
development side, including the faithful beta testers.
Mini-games In
Games by Polystyrene Man
A popular technique among some game genres is the use of
the minigame. A minigame is a small, simple game
embedded inside a larger game which usually involves some
form of coordinated “button mashing” or puzzle solving.
Many turn based games, especially console games and
games which have more than one person at a display, are in
danger of boring players who are waiting for their turn to
come around. A popular solution to this has been the
addition of the minigame, which usually draws all players
back into the game for a few minutes. Some single-player
games also use minigames, such as puzzles that the player
must solve to advance. Overall, minigames often provide
much-needed breaks from gameplay that might become
monotonous or boring.
The design of minigames is as important as their presence:
it must be consistent with the rest of the game. The
Nintendo Mario Party series does this very well by using
comical minigames in the midst of a cartoony board game.
Minigames should use the same graphical and audio styles
of the main game, although the perspective often changes.
10
You also need to consider when and where your minigames
appear. Most genres that use minigames are predictable in
that the players know when a minigame is going to happen.
You probably don't want to confuse your player by having
no apparent reason for the switch, so unless a surprise is
vital to the game's flow, try to make the minigame's
appearance pattern-driven.
Another small aspect is transitions: how you make the
switch from the main game to the minigames and back. You
could use a simple graphical transition, or you could have
text, audio or a video clue the player into what is going on.
The key is that unless you are specifically trying to surprise
your players, let them understand what is happening.
While not suited for all types of gameplay, minigames are
an oft-overlooked feature that many Game Maker games
could greatly benefit from. Seriously consider the pros and
cons of minigames when planning your game.
1. ARTICLES
12
User Opinion - What Do
You Think About GM
Porting To Mac? By GMmarine
Staff Opinion: GMmarine
“Porting GM to mac seems like a nice move indeed, but
being a part Linux user( Ubuntu distro ) I would favor a
Linux version far more. It's pretty simple logic to me, Linux
free, and OS X $100+. Even if it was being ported to Linux,
I think they should have focused on adding more features;
but at least they're doing something at YoYo Games.”
User Opinions:
TerryAllred
“I do not use MACs, however I would make Game Maker
available to Mac if it is marketably (is that a word) feasible
and affordable. Why? Because I feel Game Maker is one of
the most motivating educational tools I've ever seen. Game
Maker is like learning to play a guitar. Within minutes
anyone can have success! With a guitar you can play dozens
of songs within hours. In Game Maker I can have created
my first game within hours. Other programing languages are
like a piano, it takes months, if not years to have a success
playing anything.
Last night I spent several hours on a project I'm working
on, with a 15 yr old and a 19yr old. I was in their home, so
even their 9yr old and 6 yr old siblings got into the
discussion. These younger ones, including the 6 yr old,
proudly explained their logic as they demonstrated the
games they had built in Game Maker. I was impressed! They
are Home Schooled and use it there.
Today is such a highly competitive, computerized world.
Making Game Maker available to even an even broader
group of students, schools and Home Schools, by porting it
to the MAC, you will serve society in furthering the
education of our children. Hopefully, in the end, you'll earn
a profit too.
I have taught basic computers and Database classes in the
past. If I were to do it again I would use Game Maker as
the platform for "Introduction to Programing" In this day of
Object Oriented/Drag and Drop I feel it to be one of the
most motivating teaching tools I could use. Students want
to learn using it.
This may not be exactly what you were looking for but it is
what is on my mind this morning, after having a 6yr old
show me his game, that many adults could not have
created. My hat is off to the Creators of Game Maker!”
sn0wb0arder381
“I am personally a PC person. It would be good to have a
wider player base for my games, and especially stop all
those "will this work for mac" questions from popping up in
the Community section, but I don't think it would be best
for the program's development. To make it Mac compliant it
would most likely take a whole rewrite of Game Maker in
order to do it. Not only would this take a long time, it would
most likely hinder the development of the program as a
whole. I am a very impatient person, and I would not want
to wait longer for them to finish both versions. It would
slow the updates of the what will most likely be more
popular PC version in order to update the Mac version. Well,
that's just my opinion.”
12
OpticalLiam
“To be honest, I believe it is a waste of resources that could
better be spent elsewhere right now. The Mac gaming
sector is already known to be very small comparatively with
Windows, along with the fact that the audience reach of
most GM games is relatively low to begin with, it basically
means only a small number of gamers overall are going to
benefit from what's likely going to be a pretty large and
costly undertaking. Though I do believe that at some point
it would be best for GM to become open and platform
independant, this should really only be thought about when
more pressing issues are dealt with first - such as GM's
terrible security for instance.”
Dragonos
“I have recently switched to an iMac and have been rather
pleased with its performance. Now one of the only reasons I
still use XP via boot camp is to be able to play DX games
and create gamemaker software. The port to mac will
almost completely eliminate my requirement to develop on
XP and make development a breeze for us Intel mac users.
Some of the downsides to it may be the fact that
yoyogames make take longer to develop upgrades to the
maker that are compatible with both versions of the maker.
In the screen revealed by sandy on the "GLOG" you can see
that in the path editor the lines have anti aliasing. This may
create a nicer interface but will it slow down the already
slow loading times of the IDE? Perhaps the new processing
architecture of MacOS X could ultimately speed up the
gamemaker IDE? The only thing we can do is wait and see
what awaits us.”
Destroyer
“To be honest I think it would be a great idea. It would
increase the number of people with GM and allow a much
wider variety of people. That way maybe some of MY
questions will be answered USEFULLY. Anyway, do it, what's
the worst that could happen?”
Aertcz
“GM being able to port to Mac is a great thing. Why would
this be a detriment at all? Developers who use GM can now
be able to share their work even further. Commercial games
will now be available to a whole new community of gamers
(which may be considered a monopoly with Mac :D ). If you
ask me, the possibility for this gets a two thumbs up from
me!”
kevmister
“I think that porting to macs would be a very good idea. It
would get more people to use it therefore we would have
more people on the forums. Since macs aren't known for
running games as much as windows this might make people
change their minds if they see that good games are running
on it.
In all, yes game maker on the mac would be sweet”
1. ARTICLES
13
User Opinion (Continued)
MrJackSparrow2
“I think porting GM to macs would be a good idea, and
would bring in MANY more users to GM and the GMC. The
only issue I can see in porting is, (GM) users need to know
the file structure of mac (if they use Windows), and vice versa. For example, in XP you can write:
gamer1224
I think it is useless and more features should be made
instead.
With bootcamp for mac you can run windows
applications so there's no need for a port. More sound
formats would be better for gamemaker and maybe better
surfaces that work in d3d.That's my personal thoughts.”
file_text_open_read("C:\Program Files\My Game\Save.sav");
ev149
“As everyone knows, Mac® doesn’t have too many games to
play. If YoYo Games™ were to make GM available on Mac,®
more people with a Mac® make more games, and in turn
play them. But it probably wouldn’t catch on right away.
Plus, it would reduce sales of Microsoft,® too. So, in my
opinion, YoYo Games™ should make Game Maker™ for
Mac® and if it doesn’t work, then stop, if it does, then keep
on goin’!”
I, being a Windows user, have no idea what so ever about
how to write the equalivent for a mac. Setting aside file
structure/DirectX issues, I think GMmac would be HUGE.
(Possibly opening the gaming market to macs finally! )”
Dr. Watz0n
“Porting Game Maker to Mac has some good and bad points.
First off, its going to be quite a daunting task for YoYo
Games to port both the runner and the IDE over to OS X,
mainly because they need to switch from DirectX to OpenGL
graphics rendering. Secondly, YoYo Games could really aide
game developers by adding some of the latest technologies
integrated into Mac OS X, including Core Video, Animation,
and Sound, to help us to make our games more
professional. The drawback to some of these things? The
games made on Mac OS X can only be played on OS X with
these technologies. If they just decide to port it over to
OpenGL and leave it at that, I can't wait to see how Game
Maker works on my Mac.”
Homebrewpc
“In my opinion, Game Maker being ported to Mac is a small
leap forward. I for one, hate Macs with a passion, but for
the few amount of people that benefit, it is good. It might
open the realm of Mac gaming to freelancers rather than big
companies. In this way, smaller companies might be able to
find
actual
profit,
unlike
the
dominated
Windows
environment.”
jec_critic
“As a mac owner I think it's a good idea...
Aside from that though, the gaming market for the mac is
growing; games like Halo, Sims2, and World of Warcraft are
for the mac as well as the PC.
Even though it might be trickier to buy mac games from
game retailers, there is still a large amount of games that
can be downloaded online. This is a good thing for indie
game developers.
I would personally prefer to develop games for a mac. The
software that you can buy for a mac is superior for graphic
design (so it's not surprising that macs are standard for
most businesses involving some form of graphic or
multimedia based work) and the graphics cards for macs are
on the whole better, particularly for the power mac G5's.”
TKM
“I don't use Mac myself, in fact, I rather despise Mac. I
think it would benefit me personally a lot more if the GM
staff just worked on improving the program and adding
features; basically just keep striving to make the program
better for PCs... but I do happen to know that some very
creative people use Macs, so it may be interesting to see
what they do with the program. I would prefer, though, if
you just focused more on the functionality than the
demographic.”
13
DyerG
“I would love that Game Maker also went with Mac because
my brother has a Mac that might take Game Maker. It was
interesting to me the first time I heard about it. I think this
is awesome. I don't know what OS of Mac it takes? If you
know PM me. Thanks”
Mini
“While never really hearing about YoYo Games porting
Game Maker to Mac, I've heard various rumors about this
happening, hoping that this would happen one day, yet
hoping it wouldn't. While porting Game Maker to Mac would
expand Game maker dramatically and expand the popularity
of Game Maker, it would be a very hard and long task
meaning time that could be used improving Game Maker
would be spent porting it to Mac, thus slowing the
development of Game Maker. Do I think that YoYo Games
should port Game Maker to Mac? Though question, with
both pros and cons, on one hand, they could not do it, and
development would continue as normal, and on the other
hand, they could port it, and bringing tons of new members
into Game maker, thus funding Game Maker more from new
registrations.
I believe that if they want to, that YoYo
Games should go ahead and port Game Maker to Mac,
although halting development for a while, it will fund Game
Maker enough to gain back that lost time fairly quickly.”
Mr.Chubigans
“I think it's a good idea, but in all honesty I'd value a C++
rewrite and looking into console distribution first. I know it's
happening, but I can't see the purpose for Mac
programming at the moment.”
Pokefan200
“I think it would be good. It would be nice for other people
to know about it.”
StrikerGames
“I believe this is a great idea. I love the idea of a multiple
OS game creation software. Personally I use Windows, but
with the concept of my games on a PC, Mac, XBox, and
other systems suggested is really great and thrilling. I
would love to see the outcome. Many people are turning to
a Mac instead of Windows and it needs some pure GM spirit.
Once again this would a great idea and I think it should go
through.”
2. GMDEV
14
Making Better Game
Graphics By Polystyrene Man
You don’t need to be an incredible graphics designer or
seasoned pixel artist to create good game graphics. Where
Game Maker is largely a tool for hobbyists, some of the best
games have been created with simple, homemade graphics.
The key to making a visually appealing game does not rest
solely on the ability of the artist. Anyone can make a stylish
game simply by following a few “rules”:
Do not use gradients
Gradients are a cheap, unrealistic approach to shading. In
real life, there are no “true” gradients. And it doesn’t matter
if you’re trying to make realistic graphics- anyone with a
basic knowledge of computer art knows that gradients are
the tool of choice for a quick, cheap fix. In reality, they give
your game a sloppy PowerPoint-esque appearance.
As with any rule, there are exceptions. The point is to use
sparingly, if at all.
useful are the shortcuts of Graphics Gale: To select a color
from the canvas, one needs only to right-click on the color
(in MSPaint, this must be done with the eye dropper tool).
The selection tool is also only a right mouse button drag
away, making it easy to move things about. It is also
possible to use layers and create animations in Graphics
Gale, other tools that cannot be found in MSPaint.
Do not pillow shade
This is a square that has been pillow shaded:
Note that the edges are darker, and get progressively
lighter towards the center of the sprite. This represents an
unrealistic style of shading that turns otherwise good
drawings into bad drawings. The fact is this: Light almost
never hits an object exactly above it. This is what makes
pillow shading so ugly.
When in doubt, never pillow shade.
Do not use the default colors of MSPaint
As a matter of fact, don’t use highly saturated (or “bright”)
colors in general. They are ugly and painful to the eye. They
are distracting. There’s no better way to explain this. Even
if you’re looking to make a bright, fun game, the default
colors of MSPaint are much too fluorescent. Generally, a
good saturation level exists between 120 and 180, but it is
also good to contrast between higher levels and lower
levels. Just be sure that all of your colors don’t exceed 200that’s the “pain zone,” where people have lost their vision.
Those are the major “do-nots” of making game graphics.
Now let’s be a little more positive and list some good things
that you can do to improve your graphics.
Make small sprites
Large sprites can be overwhelming to draw, and the larger
your canvas is the more opportunity you have to draw
something out of proportion. It also becomes difficult to
shade large sprites realistically, and fluid animation is near
impossible without a good deal of practice.
No one is going to think you’re cheap for making a 16x16
sprite. In fact, the old-school style is celebrated by many.
However, if you’re set on having large sprites, you can
always set the resolution or change the scaling of the view
(set the “port on screen” size to double the size of the “view
in room”) such that your sprites appear larger onscreen.
Note that to change the saturation level of a color in
MSPaint, you must double click a color in the color tray. A
box will pop up which allows you to edit the colors. Click on
the button that says “Define Custom Colors >>”. A new
saturation level can be entered into the second box of the
first column (appropriately labeled “Sat”).
Do not use MSPaint
On the topic of MSPaint, don’t use it. Some pixel art purists
will probably disagree with me here, but the idea is to make
your life easier. Spriting in MSPaint is difficult- more difficult
than it needs to be. There simply aren’t enough tools to
work fast and efficiently. I suggest using Graphics Gale . It’s
a free download, and is much better than MSPaint. Others
promote Paint.NET and Photoshop, which are also good
choices.
14
Graphics Gale comes with a much more eye-appealing
default color palette, and the interface (though it may not
appear so at first) is very similar to MSPaint. Particularly
Shade
The idea of shading might be intimidating, but it’s not
overly difficult. Let’s assume that we want to shade a circle.
Only three colors are needed: A dark shade, a medium
shade, and a light shade. From here, it’s only a matter of
choosing a light source. This is where the hypothetical
“lamp” or “sun” is assumed to be; generally it is in the topright or top-left corner of the sprite.
Using the medium shade, fill the entire circle. Use the
darkest shade to color the portion farthest from the light
2. GMDEV
15
Making Better Game Graphics (Continued)
source, and the lightest shade to color the portion closest to
the light source. It should come out like this:
Use less colors
Using more colors does not result in a more realistic game.
A minimalistic approach is suggested: It cleans up the game
and keeps things consistent. It limits your time with the
color palette, meaning less opportunity to create clashing
color schemes.
Stick to what you know
Drawing takes practice. A lot of practice. If you haven’t got
the time or attention span to commit, then stick to what you
know. A well drawn, nicely shaded geometric shape will
always be more attractive than a poorly drawn cow.
Of course, this is an oversimplification. Realistic shading on
some objects can be difficult, but the same rules apply:
Those portions which are farthest from the light source
should be darker, while those closest to the light source
should be lighter.
Level Design
By TheMagnitude
Without adequate level design the player would get bored
very fast, and since there is thousands of games in direct
competition with you're game, then your going to want to
keep players interested so they play your game more. What
you will get out of this article is a, hopefully, more widened
or initial knowledge of how to design your levels with varied
environments and layouts.
Professional games such as Call Of Duty and Super Mario
Bros have been hailed again and again due to their
unmistakable brilliance and varied environments, that push
the gamer to the limits put the to the test in every possible
scenario of the game, which is what good levels or maps
should do. Now let me explain the difference between levels
and maps, levels are usually a series of environments in
which the player progresses through one after the other
normally following some sort of storyline. Maps are
environments that are inclusive and offer the player to
wander round freely in any direction; maps are often used
for various multiplayer modes. These definitions are not
solid but are what is thought in general.
The more varied environments a player finds himself or
herself in the less samey the levels will be to the player. If
the levels are samey, then in most circumstances the player
will get bored quite quickly, so the player needs to be
thrown into some original and varied surroundings or else
they may lose interest. A varied environment could consist
of different backgrounds and sprite schemes, i.e. just
changing the sprites with the same objects, and this would
certainly give the player a more graphical aspect of the
game to appreciate, but by doing it this way the level
objects
would
essentially
be
the
same.
Different
environments should contain unique objects that are only
found in those environments, to give the game more of a
trick.
15
Those are the basics of making better game graphics. If
you’re looking to really improve your skills as an artist, the
Internet is full of pixel art and Photoshop tutorials.
Otherwise, I hope this article was able to point you in the
right direction.
For example in New Super Mario Bros for DS the different
environments not only looked different but also had their
own features, such as: lava which you could fall in; jungle
which had more ropes to swing on; snow, which had
slippery ice that made the game a lot harder, volcano which
literally summoned meteors right above you which you had
to quickly dodge. So different environments should each
have their own "thing" that defines them and excludes them
from the rest, so not just a graphical touch, but twisting the
gameplay also.
Players would usually want to change the environment or
feel its reaction. This is when we start focusing on making a
level interact with the player as well as the player
interacting with the level. Basically, as well as the general
gameplay going on, the player needs to be able to interact
with their surroundings such as pick up useful objects, or
simply destroy parts of the environment. In some way the
player should be able to change or modify the environment
for their advantage or passage. This will give the game
more than just its normal gameplay, it will also give the
player dynamic control of their experience. And to make the
environment a responsive one, the player needs to know
that the game knows what the player is doing. This includes
rustling of bushes when a player walks through them, and
then leaves could come out of the bush to show that the
player is indeed in the environment rather than sitting
staring at a computer screen. Wading through water is
another graphically nice effect, where when a player
journeys through water, ripples, splashes and possibly
reflections could be implemented.
All these features that I have described above are key, and
if you follow my guide you should have some well-designed
levels and environments. Let's look at the key points I've
made in this article:
GOOD
●
●
●
BAD
●
Varied environments
Dynamic, responsive, and reactive environments
Environments that have unique twists on the
gameplay
Static, non-responsive, and non-reactive levels of
all the same scheme of graphics
2. GMDEV
16
Why And How To Use
Surfaces By TheMagnitude
First I'll just explain what a surface is, a surface is a canvas
that can be drawn on and, saved, added as a
sprite/background, or just shown later in the game. Thats it
at its basics.
Why use surfaces?
Surfaces are very powerful if used
technology of surfaces objects can
surface, and then surfaces are stored
the surface is freed. Many applications
here are some fundamental uses:
●
●
●
●
●
draw_surface(id,x,y);
Adding a surface as a sprite
correctly. With the
be drawn onto the
in the memory until
of surfaces exist but
Motion blur or blur in general.
Rendering sprites and backgrounds in-game without
the player realising
Speeding up gameplay by sticking immobile sprites
together
Taking an in-game screenshot and displaying it
without needing to save it as a file.
And many more...
Surfaces don't stop there, in the advanced side of things
surfaces can be used to take a text string, take an image,
and draw the text but with that image as the text which I'll
explain later. So heard enough? You want to know how to
do it yourself, well it's your lucky day cause I'm going to tell
you how to do just that.
How do I make Surfaces?
I've foolishly assumed just now that you know how to use
the in built GML editor and are capable of programming in
GML. If you don't know how to do those things I have just
said, you're not going to understand the rest of this article.
To start using surfaces you need to create one by using the
function surface_create(width,height) < now this function
actually returns a negative number if it fails to create a
surface that big. This is usually because the graphics card
of the computer running the game or program does not
have enough memory to store the surface in. Now here's
the interesting part: all you need to do then is set the
surface as the drawing target and draw away with normal
GML draw_ functions. But don't forget to reset the target of
drawing to the screen after you have drawn everything you
need on a surface. Don't worry, you can always come back
and edit a surface later on. Below is some helpful code to
get you started.
Creating and drawing on a surface
var n;
n=surface_create(w,h); // creates a
surface with width of w and height of h
if n<0 exit; // checks if the surface has
been successfully created
surface_set_target(n); // sets the
drawing target to the surface
// Draw code goes here, remember
// Draw functions are exactly the same
surface_reset_target(); // resets the
drawing target to the screen
16
Showing a surface on screen
sprite_create_from_surface(id,x,y,
w,h,precise,transparent,smooth,
preload,xorig,yorig)
Saving a surface to file
surface_save(id,fname) // saves a
surface to a file in BMP format
Surfaces are very easy to use once you've learned the
basics which I've explained above. Now I'm going to explain
how to apply the technologies of surfaces to your game. In
this example I'm going to explain how to draw textured
text. Two surfaces will be needed for this, one of the image,
and one for the text alpha mask, all we do is draw a black
rectangle over one surface, then draw white text over it;
and then with the other surface just draw the image on the
surface, and then create sprites from both of them. Apply
sprite one as an alpha mask for sprite two and then draw
sprite two. And heres how it's done:
Create Event
// Create both of the surfaces
su1=surface_create(200,50);
if su1<0 exit;
su2=surface_create(200,50);
if su2<0 exit;
// Draw on surface one
surface_set_target(su1);
draw_set_color(c_black);
draw_rectangle(0,0,200,50,0);
draw_set_color(c_white);
draw_text(10,10,"Textured Text");
surface_reset_target();
// Draw on surface two
surface_set_target(su2);
draw_sprite(spr_texture,0,0,0);
surface_reset_target();
// Create sprites out of the surfaces
sp1=sprite_create_from_surface(su1,0,0,
200,50,0,0,0,1,0,0);
sp2=sprite_create_from_surface(su2,0,0,
200,50,0,0,0,1,0,0);
sprite_set_alpha_from_sprite(sp2,sp1);
Draw Event
draw_sprite(sp2,0,0,0);
And there you have it, a nice text texture example. They're
are lots of other uses of textures as I pointed out earlier
which can have very nice graphics touches to a game. This
concludes my article, thanks for reading.
2. GMDEV
17
Environment Variables
By Gmjab
There are many functions found in the Game Maker manual.
Most functions are easy to find and well-known amongst
Game Maker uses. By reviewing over the functions
contained in the manual regularly you may find new
functions to use in your games. This can sometimes make
things easier and quicker to develop. One function that
many have yet not found or don’t know how to use is
environment_get_variable() .
developer. The list is as follows:
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
The “environment_get_variable” function is a very
useful function which can obtain system environment
variables.
This information can include: the number of
processors the computer has, operating system type,
system directory path, username and the temporary
directory path.
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
Using the function is very simple and isn’t any different to
the way you use other similar functions. There is only one
argument for “environment_get_variable”, and that is, the
name of the variable as a string. The function will then
return the result value. See code below for example:
●
●
●
●
●
●
NUMPROCESS = environment_get_variable("
NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS");
show_message(string(NUMPROCESS)); // Show result
There are a quite few variables available to use. I have
provided a list of variable that will be useful to any game
●
●
●
ALLUSERSPROFILE
APPDATA
HOMEDRIVE
HOMEPATH
LOGONSERVER
PROGRAMFILES
SYSTEMDRIVE
SYSTEMROOT
USERDOMAIN
USERNAME
USERPROFILE
WINDIR
ComSpec
FP_NO_HOST_CHECK
NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS
PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE
PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER
PROCESSOR_LEVEL
OS
Path
PATHEXT
TEMP
TMP
Using these environment variables you can find out
information about a computer without using a DLL.
Hopefully this article has given some insight into how to use
the environment_get_variable() function. For more
information on what these functions do, click here .
Create Your Own Simple
Language In GML
By Christian Sciberras
This fairly simple language is going to be interpreted not
run through an emulator or virtual machine. As every
programmer should do, we will divide large tasks into
smaller ones. First of all we need a script that returns a
word from a sentence according to the word's position. For
example:
find_word('if a>50 then b=1',1) = 'if'
find_word('if a>50 then b=1',3) = 'then'
The find_word() script contains:
// Name: find_word
// Description: Cuts a word from space to space
// argument0 - string - text
// argument1 - integer - word number (must be >=0)
// returns - mixed - (<=0 word count) (>=1 word)
// Example: find_word('hello there', 1)='hello'
and find_word('hello there', 0)=2
return find_string(argument0,argument1, ' ');
It contains a call to yet another script. This new extremely
useful script returns a string from a whole sentence which is
separated by any type of character. It is very useful
because find_string is used for many purposes such as
parsing math expressions.
17
Here is the code of this script:
// Description: Cuts a word from char to
char
// argument0 - text
// argument1 - index
// argument2 - delimiters (char)
// returns - mixed - (<=0 word count) (>=1 word)
// Example: find_string('hi there',1,' ')='hi' and
find_string('hi+there',1,'+')='hi'
var result,word,i;
result=argument0
i=0
do {
if string_count(argument2,result) then {
word=string_copy(result,
0,string_pos(argument2,result)-1)
result=string_delete(result,
1,string_pos(argument2,result))
}else{
word=result
result=''
}
i+=1
if argument1!=0 then if argument1=i then return
word
}
until (result='')
if argument1=0 then return i else return word
2. GMDEV
18
Create Your Own Simple Language In GML
(Continued)
Next we need to create the code parser. This is simply one
script with one argument, which is the code to execute. It is
also the main instruction set, that is, the language's most
basic code and variable types. Here's an example of the
parse() script:
// Name: parse()
// Description: Run the entered code
// argument0 - One line of code
// returns - string - parser result
// Example: parse("parse_test")
if argument0="" then return "Error: No code found."
switch (find_word(argument0,1))
{
case "parse_test": return "The code parser is
working."
};
return "Error: Unknown code ["+argument0+"]."
All instructions that the language will support should be put
in the switch statement. There is already a command in the
script, it is 'parse_test' which is used simply to check that
the parser script is working as it should. The next thing to
add is the support for variables. There are two best
methods for doing this, either storing the variable names
and their values in an array or use GM's variable system.
The first idea is much more powerful, you could even add
custom data types and allows the use of variable structures
and objects. But it's too difficult to explain here and could
get awfully slow, so we'll have to stick to the second and
simpler method. First, to avoid conflicts with GM's variables,
the variable's names shouldn't be converted to GM's
directly, instead the variable names should be prefixed.
Look at the following:
In GML code
The Language
Both Values
global.mylang_foo
foo
423
First the variables need to be declared, so we will do this by
using the define keyword ex: define foo. The most
important check in making variables is that their names
start with a letter. So to do this, we need to add another
statement to the switch in the parse script:
case "define":
{
if
string_length(string_lettersdigits(find_word(
argument 0,2)))!=string_length(find_word(argument0,
2)) then return "Error: Bad variable name."
variable_global_set('global.mylang_'+find_word(
argument0,2),0)
return "Created variable
"+find_word(argument0,2)+"."
}
Note line 4, it works by comparing the variable name's
length with that passed through the filter, which returns
letter and numbers only. This means you can't use special
characters, even '_'. Of course some additional coding may
remove this inconvenience but that is past the point of this
article. Next, it is useful to make the parser return a
variable's value. This will be done with keyword echo, (like
PHP's) ex: echo foo returns 0. That's fine and simple, but
how are the variables detected? Using the prefix system
gives another advantage here. In fact, each variable in this
language could be detected by simply using:
18
variable_global_exists('global.mylang_'+varia
ble_name) The following code does this (put it in the
switch statement):
case "echo":
{
if
variable_global_exists('global.mylang_'+find_
word(argument0,2))
then return
string(variable_global_get('global.mylang_'+f
ind_word(argument0,2)))
else return "Error: Variable
"+find_word(argument0,2)+" does not exist."
}
Next, we need to make it parse calculations with variables.
This will be done using the parse_expr() script. Now this is
some advanced stuff so make sure you do everything as it
should or else you could get some nasty bugs. You could
make it parse statements like foo=foo*25/100 but it needs
some advanced coding, so lets start with a more simpler
solution. We will use the let keyword, (more or less like
BASIC). The syntax for using this will be like ex: let foo
100/25. Which contains 3 words: 'let' (the command), 'foo'
the variable receiving the value and '100/25', the expression
to evaluate. Thus add the following code to the parse()
script's switch statement:
case "let":
{
if variable_global_exists(
'global.mylang_'+find_word(argument0,2)) then {
variable_global_set('global.mylang_'+find_word(
argument0,2), parse_expr(find_word(argument0,3)))
return "Variable "+find_word(argument0,2)+" was
set to "+variable_global_get('global.mylang_'
+find_word(argument0,2))+"."
} else return "Error: Variable
"+find_word(argument0,2)+" does not exist."
}
Unfortunately this makes the language's syntax pretty strict,
you can't use ex: “let foo 100 / 25” but “let foo
100/25” instead (without spaces in the expression). Now
let's look into how parse_expr should work. Now this sure
needs some explanation! The most basic rule here is
passing through correct precedence ex: “5+3*2” returns 11
not 16. The simple system to help in this is using “BODMAS”
(Brackets, Of, Division,
Multiplication, Addition and
Subtraction). Both D and M has the same precedence, which
is also the case with A and S. To make it run more
smoothly, the script runs itself (iterates) to evaluate every
possible piece especially when it comes to the brackets.
Here is a sample list of what the script should do (in
chronological order):
Action
Example
Script 0 Input
(foo*3)+bar*2
Translate Variables
(5*3)+4*2
Sprite 1 Input
5*3
Script 2 Input
4*2
Results in Script 0
15+8
Result
23
Diagram
2. GMDEV
19
Create Your Own Simple Language In GML
(Continued)
Now, having a precise objective, it shouldn't be extremely
difficult to put this into practical GML. First of all, you will
agree that the objective could be separated yet into two
other script, thus it will end up having parse_expr (the main
script) and parse_part (this separates numbers). Hopefully
you will understand the basics of both scripts. Also, a note
of importance, the script was designed so you could easily
add any other arithmetic symbols like '^' (power), '\' (root),
'%' (modulus)... Hint: these take different precedences, so
look them up before adding the code.
// Name: parse_expr()
// Description: Evaluates the entered expression
// argument0 - One line of code
// returns - string - parser result (if any)
// Example: parse_expr("10*2")=20
parse_expr("10==10")='true'
var pos,anm,bnm,i,br,r,rt; r=0
if string_count('(',argument0)!
=string_count(')',argument0)
then {math_error='Error: Incorrect brackets in
'+argument0+'.' return 0}
if string_count('(',argument0)!=0 then{
//
Solve Brackets
for (i=1; i<=string_length(argument0); i+=1){
if string_char_at(argument0,i)='(' then br=i
if string_char_at(argument0,i)=')' then{
argument0=string_replace(argument0,string_copy(a
rgument0,br,i-br+1),
parse_expr(string_copy(argument0,br+1,i-br-1)))
return parse_expr(argument0)}}}
if (string_count('/',argument0)!=0)and(r=0) then
// Evalutate Division
{parse_part(argument0,'/')
rt=global.Number1/global.Number2 r=1}
if (string_count('*',argument0)!=0)and(r=0) then
// Evalutate Multiplication
{parse_part(argument0,'*')
rt=global.Number1*global.Number2 r=1}
if (string_count('+',argument0)!=0)and(r=0) then
// Evalutate Addition
{parse_part(argument0,'+')
rt=global.Number1+global.Number2 r=1}
if (string_count('-',argument0)!=0)and(r=0) then
// Evalutate Subtraction
{parse_part(argument0,'-') rt=global.Number1global.Number2 r=1}
if r=1 then{ argument0=string_replace_all(
argument0,global.Replace,string(rt))
return parse_expr(argument0)}
return argument0 // Cannot be parsed anymore
Basically, the script could be divided into three parts, from
line 7 to 15, from line 16 to 23 and the rest. The first part
runs multiple copies of this same script but with the values
inside the brackets. The second part runs parse_part to
solve the expression's operators. The rest does the changes
to the remaining parts of the expression and if the
expression doesn't result to a single value, it reruns itself. If
it does return one value, then the script ends there and
returns the value. The simple approach to how this works is
using the “x operator y” rule. Every expression in fact
consists of many of these, even “invisible ones” like 2x
(2*x) and -5 (0-5). The most important thing in solving this
is precedence, which in fact is how the code above works.
Note that lines 16/17 are for division, 18/19 for
multiplication, 20/21 for addition and 22/23 for subtraction.
The next script, parse_part should be simpler to
comprehend. But there is one huge difference here, the
script must return at least three values, so how does it do
that? In fact it doesn't return anything at all!
19
//
//
//
//
//
Name: parse_part()
Description: Evaluates the entered expression
argument0 - Expression
argument1 - Operator to check for
returns - there is no result but feedback
variables are used:
// global.Number1 global.Number2 global.Replace
// Example: parse_part('9+3','+') -> 9 | 3 | '9+3'
show_debug_message("parse_part("+argument0+","+argu
ment1+")")
var pos,anm,bnm,i,ii;
if string_count(argument1,argument0)!=0 then{
pos=string_pos(argument1,argument0)
i=pos-1 anm='' bnm=''
repeat(pos-1){
if (string_digits(string_char_at(argument0,i))!
='')
or(string_char_at(argument0,i)='.')
then anm=string_char_at(argument0,i)+anm
else break
i-=1
}
ii=i
i=pos+1
repeat(string_length(argument0)-pos){
if (string_digits(string_char_at(argument0,i))!
='') or(string_char_at(argument0,
i)='.') then bnm+=string_char_at(argument0,i)
else break
i+=1
}
global.Number1=real(anm)
global.Number2=real(bnm)
global.Replace=string_copy(argument0,ii,i-ii-1)
}
As you see, instead of returning a value, it sets three
variables Number1, Number2 and Replace. So for example if
we
use
“parse_part('6*3+5/2','*')”
it
will
set
“global.Number1=6”,
”global.Number2=3”
and
“global.Replace='6*3'”.
Here's a quick summary of this code's capabilities:
●
It can allocate variables
●
It can return variable's results
●
It can use 5 types of operators (brackets, division,
multiplication, addition and subtraction)
●
It can have input of unsigned decimal or integer
numbers.
Next time we will be passing through some harder stuff, so
make sure you re-read this and practice some GML,
especially on the demo program source which can be found
with the resources provided with this issue.
▪▪▪▪
2. GMDEV
20
Tutorial: Auto Write Text
By Calle Ekdahl
This was a question which was sent to me, and rather than
trying to explain to you my task I might as well write it out
to you: How can I make a text field and have it type a
sentence that I already made up while I'm typing something
totally different? Like, I can press any letters on the
keyboard but no matter what it's gonna type something
like, say for example: "I like to go jogging". And it will
always type that, for every letter I type no matter what
letter it is, it types whatever sentence I put it to type to. I
duno if I'm explaining myself?? I'm not familiar with strings
at all but I'm also not a beginner in gm but if someone can
help me out with this? ... I made an example out of it, but I
will also try to do some explaining, as this does use
strings...
Create Event
mytext = "Sir Winston Leonard SpencerChurchill, (30 November 1874 ? 24 January
1965) was a British politician and
statesman, soldier in the British Army,
orator, and strategist, and is studied as
part of the modern British and world
history. A prolific author, he won the Nobel
Prize in Literature in 1953 for his writings
on British and world history.. ## Source:
Wikipedia.org";
In this first part I assign the text to a variable. mytext is
henceforth a variable containing this string. It will be the
content that I write out.
Draw Event
draw_rectangle_color(0,0,room_width,
room_height,c_ltgray,c_ltgray,c_gray,c_gray,
false);
draw_set_color(c_gray);
draw_set_alpha(0.8);
draw_rectangle(20,40,room_width-20,room_height,
false);
draw_text_color(20,5,"Tell me all you know about#
Winston Churchill!",c_gray,c_gray,c_black,c_black,
1);
draw_set_alpha(1);
draw_set_color(c_black);
This code above here is just some layout stuff that I put
together, you don't need to care about. This which I will
show you next is the important stuff...
draw_text_ext(25,45,string_copy(mytext,
1,string_length(keyboard_string)),-1,
room_width-50);
draw_text_ext will write out a string will write out a string
at a suiting position, with correct width and separation. The
string will be what the user sees and it needs to be as long
as what he has written himself. What the user writes is
automatically stored in a variable called keyboard_string,
which makes this pretty simple. We simply copy as many
letters from the variable mytext as keyboard_string consists
of. string_length(keyboard_string) is the number of
characters the user has input, so now we copy that many
characters from mytext, and that will be what we write out:
string_copy(mytext,1,string_length(keyboard_string))
Tutorial: Arc Angled Text
By Calle Ekdahl
In PowerPoint you can find something called “Word art”,
that draws good looking text with all sort of colours and
shapes. One shape is like an arc, like a parabola. There are
several ways to produce this same thing in Game Maker,
and I am going to show you one. Without colour and stuff
though, that is something you can add yourself.
Choose A Function
Choose a function to decide how the arc should look. Any
parabola will do, but often you look for something special.
In our case we want a arc, a parabola that is turned
upwards. The general formula for a second degree equation
is:
but we don't need to define all of those variables. For us
this will work:
If we wanted an arc that's turned downwards we could have
used:
20
Now you just have to choose a value for b. The larger the
more sharp upwards it will go, if the value gets to high then
the text will not be easy to see, and therefore we choose
something not too large, not too small:
Derive the
By deriving
will indicate
angle every
Function
the function we can get the coefficient, and it
how sharp the curve is. It can decide how much
single letter should have, this is how we do:
If you are not familiar with derivation you don't need to
care about this, like you don't have to care about the next
step if you do not know of trigonometry; as long as you can
see what we want with each piece of code.
How to calculate the angle for the n:th letter
In the code each letter will correspond to one x, therefor we
can use the derivation. The derivation tells us show sharp
the curve is, therefore it can be expressed as the following:
2. GMDEV
21
Tutorial: Angled Arc Text (Continued)
We can now do the coding
Since we now have a plan, we can do the code. First of all
there are a couple of things that we ought to decide; for an
example the constant b, the spacing between each letter
and the text we want to write.
text = "THIS IS AN EXAMPLE";
space = 10;
h = 20;
Then we create a loop which will be used to write all letters.
The condition for this loop will therefore be to do this until
it has been done as many times as the number of letters':
for (i=1; i<=string_length(text); i+=1) {
And then we calculate on which x position the letter should
be drawn at:
xx = x+string_width(string_copy(text,1,i-1)
)+space*i;
We start out from the object's x-position when we draw,
then we work towards the right by counting the spacing for
every letter and the width of the letter themselves.
The angle is calculated using the derivation:
angle = arctan(b-2*yy)*string_length(text)
+180
+180 doesn't belong to the trigonometry, but must be there
because of the way Game Maker sees angles. I multiply with
the number of letters since I have earlier divided with with
the number of letters when I calculated yy; which I did
because it had to work the last stage, but here we don't
really want it. Last stage is to draw everything, and it is
nothing strange about it, everything is just as we have
calculated it with the function as the y value of the letter:
draw_text_ext_transformed(xx,y-(b*(yy)sqr(yy)),string_char_at(text,i),-1,-1,-1,-1,
angle);
And this is the entire code:
text = "THIS IS AN EXAMPLE";
space = 10;
b = 20;
for (i=1; i<=string_length(text); i+=1) {
xx = x+string_width(string_copy(text,1,i-1))
+space*i;
yy = (b/string_length(text))*i
angle = arctan(b-2*yy)*string_length(text)+180
draw_text_ext_transformed(xx,y-(b*(yy)sqr(yy)),string_char_at(text,i),-1,-1,-1,-1,angle);
}
I hope someone found this interesting. Note that there are
several other ways to do this same thing, but I wanted to
use this math and that's why I chose it. Trigonometry only
will work also.
Tutorial: List Files
By Calle Ekdahl
If you have ever created a game or program that saves
files, then you have probably also encountered another
problem: how to load a file. This article will not deal with
how to load the information itself, but it will deal with how
to give the user a chance to select a specific file. It is very
common to use slots; because if the user selects slot one
you know that you're supposed to load slot1.sav,
sometimes this slot-based system doesn't work, and you
want to be able to save an infinitive number of files, maybe
with custom names.
It will get all names of the files in the files folder that got
the specified extension. I am doing this with two loops: the
first one is using my mask and attributes to find all the files,
it sorts them into an array. The second will go through that
array and add them to a list and it will also add a new line
character, this way I will be able to draw the list as one.
That is what I do in get_integer. It will look something like
this:
I use the following code to compile a list of all my save files
and present it to the user:
name 3
user selects 0 we can figure out what file that is
back at the array:
c = 0;
extension="extension";
file[c] = file_find_first("files/*."+extension,
fa_archive);
while !(file[c] == "") {
c +=1;
file[c] = file_find_next();
}
file_find_close();
d = 0;
exi_files = "";
while(d<c) {
exi_files += string(d) +". "+file[d]+"#";
d+=1;
}
selected_nr = get_integer("Choose a file and then
enter the number below (use unexisting number to
cancel):#"+exi_files,"");
21
0. Custom
1. File2
2. Custom
Etc. If the
by looking
name 1
if (selected_nr<=c) {
file = file_text_open_read("files/"
+file[selected_nr]);
}
I add an If statement, with proper condition, because we do
not actually know that the user will enter one of the
numbers that are displayed. He might enter any number, by
mistake perhaps, and if we try to open that file it will cause
an error. This will work though.
Note that you may also use the first part of the code, this
last open-up-file code, but present it anyway other than in a
pop-up. This method is highly sophisticated and it's possible
to present the info in anyway, as you got it in an array.
2. GMDEV
22
Tutorial: Highlight
By Calle Ekdahl
The question, “how do you make it such that someone may
highlight and copy your text?”, inspired me to make an
example. As nothing else were defined I chose to assume
the one who asked used the draw_text function, but it will
also work at other kinds of text as long as you know how
wide it is and how high.
Also important is that although highlighting literally means
to put importance to something, in computer terms we often
say it and mean the visual effect as when you select a text.
I will do the visual effect. It may also be used to select a
text, and then the program will know which text. This
example has several advantages. If there is something you
don't understand how to do with this example, just ask on,
by commenting preferably. Here is the property of the
single object that I use:
Create Event
highlight = false;
offset = 5;
some_text = "This is the test text!";
Global Left Mouse Button Event
Draw Event
draw_set_color(c_blue);
if (highlight == true) {
//This is a visual effect, which may be removed!
draw_rectangle(x-offset,y-offset,x
+string_width(some_text)+offset,y
+string_height(some_text)+offset,false);
}
draw_set_color(c_black);
draw_text(x,y,some_text);
As you may see in the code there are a few places where I
have commented and said something like that the following
piece of code can be deleted. It could also be replaced by
something custom. Keep that in mind. The visual effect
could be changed for an example, and maybe you didn't
want to copy the text to the clipboard, so you could replace
that with anything else that you actually want to do.
Good luck with your creations, instead of explaining how
this thing works (you'll have to figure that out yourself, or
ask).
if (mouse_x<x+string_width(some_text)) &&
(mouse_x>x) && (mouse_y<y
+string_height(some_text))
&& (mouse_y>y) {
highlight = true;
//Now I copy the text to the clipboard, can be
removed:
clipboard_set_text(some_text);
}
else {
highlight = false;
}
Pixel Tutorial
By Hiyukantaro
Getting Inspiration
This time you won't see any pictures or explanations about
how to make anything, because this tutorial is about how to
get inspiration, how to use it in your work, and how to get
it anyway. I hope this will be useful to you, for most artists
it is.
1. We want to have inspiration. No music in the
background, this distracts you, because if you listen to
music and do something else your brain tries to focus on 2
different things. We can turn on some music while pixelling
though.
2. Think about what you're going to make. Is it for a game?
Then ask the developer what he needs. Also, think about a
style to fit that object. If you're doing a piece for yourself
think about an interesting subject, and choose a style that
fits the piece of art you want to make. This is also
important for Drawing, Painting, Brushing And Computer
Designing. Believe me, I have some experience with all of
these types of art.
3. Now, if you want to do it the professional way... first
make concept art. Take a sheet of paper and draw what you
want. Make some designs, and be creative. Choose the best
one, and try to pixel it.
These steps will help you in getting your ideas onto your
22
screen. If not I'm a complete fool, you are not made for
using this way of working. You're not paying close attention.
When you decided to become an artist, you were excited,
and wanted to do rather a lot in your new job. You took
every job, and you screened the GMC Graphics section for
some work.
After a while you get in a game development team. And you
just don't feel like doing the GMC Graphics requests that
much anymore. You get all those jobs for your new boss...
which is good. When I got into a team, I can remember it
very well. It was the team of my friend Michael (who is a
programmer) called MediYama Games. I'm still in the team
now.
Fast after that I joined ISI (Ice Spark Interactive), and did
some other projects (one-game teams). Then I got in this
state of being stuck in all my pixel work, which is a very
common thing in art.
The projects were done, but I was still in both teams. If you
feel like you're in that state of being out of inspiration, and
feeling like you're doing the same thing all the time, then
challenge yourself, and try some new things. I have noticed
that everyone who does this gets back on the right track.
If you want to do something new, maybe try using the steps
above.
2. GMDEV
23
Weapon Spriting With
Paint Tutorial By Medieval
Firstly open paint going through Start > All Programs >
Accessories > Paint. That shouldn't be too hard. I'm going
to assume in this tutorial that you know how to draw with a
pencil in paint, zoom in and out, and select colours from the
image. The next thing to do now that you have paint open
is to find a picture of the weapon you want to sprite on the
internet or from some other resource (this is a good way to
start off and once you get good you'll be able to make your
own weapons). Then copy and paste the image into paint.
This will be a reference to you when you are pixelling your
sprite underneath and you will probably be finding yourself
constantly looking back and forth from it. Next thing to do
before you get started it to rip a pallet from somewhere so
that you can quickly grab a particular shade of a colour
from there. This will prove useful in most circumstances. It's
also useful to have, if you are making the weapons in a
series (maybe for a particular game), another earlier made
sprite of another weapon so you can make the new sprite
relative to the size of the last one you did.
Now your ready to start, i recommend zooming in 6x when
pixelling but if you have a steady hand 2x is good enough.
The first thing you should do is draw a careful outline of the
weapon on the screen with a definitive black colour. It
should look something like this:
Once you have done that you just fill in the appropriate
sections with the appropriate colours, which you can select
from the reference image. Like this:
23
Now it's starting to look like something good, but here
comes the hard part, the shading. There are two methods I
can suggest to you here.
Dithering
This is when you make a checkered bunch of dots. This is
often used for textured surfaces or rough surfaces where
the light is reflecting off it at different angles and It looks
something like this:
Smooth Shading
This is when, on curved surfaces the colours fade lighter or
darker depending on the amount of light that reflects off.
Since this is sometimes hard to see, just copy where the
weapon is darkest and lightest from your reference image.
Smooth Shading looks like:
What you get in the end once you've shaded in everything
should be something like this:
And then you can just remove all your reference images and
pallets and be left with a very nice sprite. :)
This method is very effective and I have made 10+ weapons
with it.
3. EXCLUSIVES
24
Exclusive: BarnStormer
BETA 2 By Gmjab
Good 3D Game Maker games are extremely rare to find.
This is because of the limited 3D functionality Game Maker
has. However despite these limitations, a team has gone
ahead and made a game that is quite good and somewhat
addictive even in its early stages.
This game is Barnstormer, a stunt pilot game set out on a
farm. The aim is to earn enough money by flying to save
your farm. For a Game Maker game, Barnstormer has
excellent graphics. The terrain is nicely detailed with
smooth hills and shadows. However this beta has large
seams in the skybox on level 1. Two things I like about the
graphics in this game are the sun and clouds. The sun is
quite realistic in this game because of it's glow. The sun
also has a lens flare and if you fly towards the sun the
screen lights up. Next the clouds look great. They are very
smooth and when you fly through them they still look like
clouds. However due to depth issues some clouds do look
like walls.
The models in this game besides the default plane are not
highly detailed. However it's been said that the models will
be updated in future versions. Now the menu has been
slightly updated in this version. The menu now feels more
complete and you can get an idea of the way the game will
look when its finished.
As for sound, there was not a lot of it. All I heard was the
same song loop over and over and the sound of the plane's
propeller turning. So this game needs to be upgraded in this
department.
Now the gameplay is very good, however the plane physics
could be improved. The plane didn't feel like it was loose
enough. When I turned it felt like the plane just stayed on
the same angle while turning. Compared to all the other GM
flight games, this game however, does have the best flight
physics. I'm sure many of you have played games in which
if you go off the map it shows a countdown before throwing
you back onto the map? Well this game has a countdown
also which I was very surprised to see. Now the FPS this
game runs at is quite high even when running at a high
resolution. I experienced no lag whatsoever during the
game.
As good as this game is, it has bugs. One bug I found was
when doing a barrel roll. Instead of just spinning the plane
around which works without bugs, I held down the left
arrow button and the down arrow until the plane turned
over half way, then pressed the up arrow for the rest of the
flip. The game then said I did a forward flip instead of a
barrel roll. The second bug I found was when I was trying
to land. When I was coming down onto the airstrip I moved
the plane on an angle and hit the ground. Instead of
blowing up the plane got stuck in the ground. However
attempts to re-create the bug failed.
This game is quite a good game that still has a few kinks in
it to be worked out. Beta 2 will be released on January 2 nd .
Some new things in beta 2 I saw were:
- New sunset Level
- Menu finished
- Birds
- Refreshed HUD
- Updated “My Barn”
24
3. EXCLUSIVES
25
Exclusive: Interview With
Jesper About BS By Gmjab
GMT: Tell us a bit about the BlueBind team, its members
and their roles. The team just had its anniversary recently,
when did you first form? How did the idea for Barn Stormer
come about?
JSP: “BlueBind was set up by ThatGamesGuy, a well known
member from the GMC, in August 2006. Back then, we were
called ‘TGG Team A’. Shortly after TGG posted the
application topic, some people joined pretty quickly. The
number of members in the team was growing very quick (at
one point we had 24 people on the team), but that did not
mean everyone was active. So as a result of lots of people
being inactive, there were “exclusion rounds”. Everyone who
was inactive would be excluded from the team. This way,
we tried to form a solid team without inactive people.
The first project we started was based off of an idea TGG
thought of: ‘Stunt Pilot’. In the game you play as a farmer,
who has taken up barnstorming again because his farm
wasn't doing very well. That project, now better known as
“Barnstormer: 1920” was liked by everyone on the team and
progress was made very soon. The first demo release was in
January 2007, on the GMC. Soon we posted it on other sites
(GMG, 64Digits), and at all places it was very popular.
Another major event for the team happened in April 2007,
when TGG decided that he would quit the TGG forum, and
therefore also the teams. He did that because he didn't find
it fun anymore, and fun was one of the reasons why he set
up the forum (I don't have any more information on that,
sorry).
As lots of users enjoyed it there, and wanted to continue
this nice community, we decided that there should be a new
forum. The name was decided upon, ‘Reunited’, which name
you can probably understand.
There at ‘Reunited’, the teams and contests were continued,
and after a poll, I was chosen as the new team leader for
the ‘Reunited Game Development Team’. Because TGG
excluded lots of inactive people just before he closed the
forum, we were left with a small, solid group of 8 team
members. That was one of the causes that meant
everything started to run a lot better and smoother. With
the new group, we continued the work on ‘Barnstormer:
1920’ and made lots of progress on the game. We also
changed the name to the ‘Reunited Game Development
Team’. We have never really liked this name because it was
too long, so after some polls we decided on a new name,
‘BlueBind’.
As we didn't want everything to be just like it was at the
TGG forum, where people could just apply and then never
come back again, we wanted to have a team of people
which we could rely on. Therefore, we changed to a
recruiting system, but that didn't work as well as we at first
thought it would, so we had to think of maybe a
combination between those two systems. That is why we
changed to an applying system, where it would not be as
easy as just posting a post in a topic and getting in. I made
a sub-forum for the applications, so people would have to
post a topic after a form was set up. Maybe that doesn't
sound like it would work better, but looking at the results it
proved it did. From that point, out of 4 applications, 2
people have joined, who have proven to be valuable for the
team.
25
The roles for everyone in the team are not totally specified.
On the TGG forum, people were only allowed to work in
their own department, but that's not how it is anymore.
People can now work outside their own departments, and be
of worth for other ones. This is the team currently and
everyone in their main departments:
Jesper: Team leader, Programming and 3D graphics.
Edge: Programming, 2D graphics and 3D graphics.
Turvas: 2D graphics (the “artistic side”, menus and stuff
like that).
Gompen: Level design.
Dr. Eechmen: Story and cut-scene design.
DJ_GLiTCH: Music and sound effects.
Andyops: Programming.
DarkDepths: 2D graphics and 3D graphics.
L4nt0m: Programming.
Joshuaallen64: Programming.”
GMT: As a 3D flight game in GM, did you even think it
would be possible to create a quality game like it has turned
out to be?
JSP: “No, not at all. Believe it or not, ‘Barnstormer: 1920’
was first supposed to be a 2D side-view game. I actually
think nobody on the team (at the time of the game idea
coming out) had full confidence that we could manage to
make it 3D, let alone with the quality of gameplay and
graphics it currently has. But I really think we have a great,
solid team now and because of that we did manage to get
to the point that we are now.”
GMT: Barn Stormer uses GM's built in d3d functions, has
this caused problem during the development? Would it have
been better to use a 3D dll?
JSP: “It hasn't caused us any “problems” because we didn't
use a 3D DLL, I'd rather call it “challenges”. On the question
whether it has given us challenges, I am glad to answer
that it did. Not using a 3D DLL for a 3D game with high
quality graphics is hard, but not impossible.
This subject has been brought up several times by different
people, and there are several things that have kept us from
using a DLL. But the main reason is that we want to push
the 3D in Game Maker to its limits, without the use of any
3D DLL's.
With Ultimate 3D for example, we would have been able to
get more detailed 3D models, running at a better speed. But
what would people said if they saw the graphics of this
game then? Probably something in the range of: “Nice
graphics, but that's not really special because you're using
U3D.” Now people are amazed by the high quality graphics,
running at pretty decent speeds because they didn't think
this would be possible without using a 3D DLL.
Pushing things to the limits also inspires you to go as
efficient as possible, doing as much stuff as possible to get
even the slightest improvement on the performance, which I
really think gets the best out of people.”
3. EXCLUSIVES
26
Interview With Jesper About B.S (Continued)
GMT: What has kept your team motivated during the
development of this game?
JSP: “I think that it was a combination of several things,
from which a big one probably is that we all really wanted
to finish the game. Really wanting to complete the game
and make a high quality game is great motivation in any
project. But another thing that kept us motivated was that
we were working on it as a team.
One problem when you are working on a game alone is that
you have no one to motivate you to continue. In a team,
you have. There are always two thirds of the team who are
active and accomplice things that gets other members of
the team inspired and active too. If you are very busy for
some reason or another, you don't have to worry that there
is no work done because other people continue working on
the game and keep the progress going. The work on a game
almost never stops, because there are always people
working on it.”
GMT: What software was used for creating the high quality
resources BS has?
JSP: “The 2D graphics are almost completely made with
Adobe Photoshop, which Turvas, Edge and DarkDepths use.
L4nt0m however, uses Corel Paint Shop Pro X, with which
he can do pretty amazing things.
The sound tracks are being made by DJ_GLiTCH, who is a
DJ and has won several awards with making music on his
computer. He uses lots of high quality programs, which he
gets from the person who has got him a record deal.
For 3D graphics, I use Blender 3D and EDGE uses 3DSMax.
I'm not sure what DarkDepths uses though; I haven’t had
the chance to ask him yet.
The storyline of ‘Barnstormer: 1920’ is also of high quality
in my opinion, and is completely written by Dr. Eechmen.
He uses no great program other than his own imagination,
but I don't think that could be called a program.”
GMT: What do you think makes the 3D game look better,
high quality models or large textures?
JSP: “I think high quality models are part of how good a
model looks, but only in combination with high quality
textures. The size of the textures doesn't really matter when
the texture looks good, 128x128 or 256x256 (I prefer
256x256) looks very great.
What also determines whether a 3D game looks good, is
detail. In models, for example, simple things can make the
model much better than they did before, using only 2
triangles. Another thing that is really important for me is
that everything fits together. Everything has to be the same
style and not for example, partially realistic and partially
cartoonish.”
GMT: As a 3D Game Maker game, you probably would have
had to overcome game lag in areas, what techniques were
used for better game performance?
JSP: “It indeed is a very big challenge to get as little lag is
possible. We save as many triangles as we can, and try to
use as little memory as possible.
We especially try to save as many triangles as possible on
the models that are used lots of times. The tree model for
example, is used about 50 times. That means that every
triangle you save in the model, saves you 50 triangles in the
game. Therefore models that we use a lot of times are as
low-poly as possible.
26
For example, every model that is used several times is not
defined for every instance again. We load the model to a
global variable, which is used in all the instances. So
instead of doing this for every instance:
modelID_rock=d3d_model_create();
d3d_model_load(modelID_rock,'rock.mod');
We do the following in another object (of which only one
exists):
global.modelID_rock=d3d_model_create();
d3d_model_load(global.modelID_rock,'rock.mod');
One thing that has really caused major performance
improvement is pre-calculating as many things as possible.
A good example of this is the shadows. The shadows are
pre-calculated at the start of the game using surfaces and
then they are saved to a sprite. Then we get the texture
from the sprite and make a model with the calculated
dimensions. The model is a floor based on the terrain
height, which therefore only consists of 2 triangles. As the
shadows are affected by the sun, they also are not recalculated every step. One time is enough, and that saved
us for example about 5 FPS.
For smooth gameplay, we also used a DLL/engine GearGod
made, the HighResTimer DLL. It has smooth delta-time
which has been of great help for us to have smooth
gameplay, even when suddenly the FPS drops for example.”
GMT: BS looks like it has a lot of lines of code, roughly how
many lines of code are there which makes up BS?
JSP: “Now I found out how to get all the code at once, and
pasted it to a text editor, I got some statistics for you. The
code used in ‘Barnstormer: 1920’ consists of 278029
symbols/characters, 44793 words and 10619 lines.”
GMT: How were the plane physics done? Did you use an
engine from an example or is it custom built?
JSP: “Runivo, who was a member of the team, had already
made an engine for this. That's the engine which we used
(after making many changes to it so it would be perfect for
‘Barnstormer: 1920’). So you could say it is half-engine,
half custom built.”
GMT: BS is a freeware game; do you think the team will
make any shareware games in the future?
JSP: “I've thought of that, and other people (probably
everyone in the team) have done so too. This project is
very likely to stay freeware, but for further projects, I have
no idea whether they will be shareware or not.”
GMT: What do you think the future of the BlueBind team
holds?
JSP: “Even better graphics, innovative coding and qualityprojects. We'll see.”
GMT: Thank you for doing the interview with GMT, are
there any final things you would like to say about the
project?
JSP: “It was my pleasure to have this interview. I hope you
have all enjoyed the read and I also hope to see you on the
Reunited forum, a nice community and home to the
BlueBind team. We will continue our work on ‘Barnstormer:
1920’ and hope to release it within a month so make sure
you check the topic out. “
Reunited forum
3. EXCLUSIVES
27
Exclusive Review:
Conflict Arcade By NAL
When I started playing Conflict Arcade against the bot, I
was hit by four things in a set order. First – the graphics are
amazing. Second – the AI is amazing. Third – the AI is VERY
good. I was in the tutorial, and I was killed 5 times before
even killing him once. The fourth thing was that when
complete, Conflict Arcade is going to be absolutely fantastic.
When first running the game, I was hit by an extraordinarily
professional main menu. With no complication I’d set up an
account
with
my
personal
controls
and
graphical
preferences, and was being tuted by a clear tutorial. It
taught me the controls, allowed me to showcase a machine
gun, then threw me into combat with an AI-controlled bot.
“Ah, this’ll be a walk in a park”, I thought three seconds
before a sniper-rifle wielding bot came and shot me through
the head. After a couple of goes I had it down to a tee, and
was ripping his head off. The satisfaction of simply beating
this first enemy was high. It reinforced the fourth thing I
thought – when this game is complete, it’ll be phenomenal.
The graphics are incredibly polished. Detail is given to
everything, shooting creates realistic effects in both the
bullet and the gun, blood spills, chunks fly out of buildings,
and much, much more. If your computer is high-spec, you
can appreciate it further, as RhysAndrews has provided
graphical
options
to
optimize
performance.
Not
revolutionary, but it’s an aspect that all high-quality PC
games have.
Gameplay-wise, the game is good, not yet great. Although it
is solid and fun, it’s a little hard, and a few quirks (such as
the over-responsive camera) make aiming difficult. These
don’t destroy the otherwise fantastic gameplay, just detract
from it a little. It can be forgiven, especially as the game is
still a work in progress, so things like this can be ironed
out.
Sounds and background music are both appropriate to the
game. There is not a huge amount of variety, but it really
does not matter. In fact, it’s a good thing. If the game was
filled with ambience, footsteps and suchlike, it might
distract the user. Simple music and gunshots/impacts are
fine.
The other thing that makes this game special is the details.
The one that made me smile was a certain bot that was
called Pvt Parts.
This is going to be an awesome game when it is complete. I
personally look forward to playing the full version very
much, and so should you.
27
3. EXCLUSIVES
28
Exclusive Interview With
Mark Overmars By Gamez93
We caught up with the creator of Game Maker, and asked
him the questions you want answered.
For those of you who aren't exactly
Overmars is, here is a little biography...
sure
who
Mark
My name is Mark Overmars (not related to the soccer
player, whose first name by the way is Marc, not Mark), I
live in Utrecht, in the center of the Netherlands. (This
means that independent of what direction you take, within 2
hours by car you reach the sea or the border.)
I am working as a full professor at Utrecht University in the
Department of Information and Computing Sciences. There I
am scientific director of the Center for Advanced Gaming
and Simulation. I will write more about the work that is
done in the research center in future contributions. I am
doing research on path planning and animation in games
and virtual environments. I am teaching a course on
computer game design. And of course I am the creator of
Game Maker and one of the directors and shareholders of
YoYo Games. Also I am, as an advisor, involved in some
game companies in the Netherlands. Here is a picture of
my, although I hardly ever dress that formally. For more
information on my university work, check out my web page
there.
People often asked me what computer games I played when
I was young. The answer is simple: none. There were no
computer games those days. There were hardly any
computers. I saw the first computer in my life when I was
16 years old and a friend of mine took me to the place his
father worked where they had a big computer (probably
with the computing power of a modern watch). I remember
how impressed I was when they showed me the core
memory. For those who do not know, core memory
consisted those days of a huge block of little metal rings
(the cores) through which wires were run (horizontal,
vertical, and diagonal). Each core represented 1 bit of
information. One 16×16 cm card represented 1 or 2
kilobytes and the memory consisted of a large number of
such little cards. It was huge, heavy, and very expensive.
Probably because of that visit I became interested in
computer science.
But it took until the 80ties while I was working on my PhD
before I really got interested in computer games. In
particular when the Atari ST appeared I got hooked on it. I
played many games, created my own (more about that
some other time) and started to write game reviews for a
Dutch Atari magazine. Also in those days I wrote my first
paper on what is a good game. Something we still do not
fully understand. I hope my glog will shed some more light
on that.
Source: Mark Overmars Glog
http://mark.glog.yoyogames.com
Now, the interview, we have split the questions into
categories to allow you to easily find the question your
looking for. Enjoy the interview.
28
YoYo Games / General
GMT: If you were to retire, would Game Maker continue to
be developed by YoYo Games?
MKO: “I do not plan to retire any time soon. But the
development of Game Maker is independent of me being
there or not. I am not doing it myself anymore but
(partially) supervise the work. So there is no need to worry
about this.”
GMT: Do you think 2008 will be a successful year for YoYo
Games in accomplishing some of its goals?
MKO: “Yes I do. 2007 was a year in which we had to start
up a lot of things. In 2008 we will see the further fruits of
that. Also with the additional funding we expect to secure
the coming months we will be able to achieve a lot more.
Expect an extended website, new version of Game Maker,
further support for developers, etc.”
GMT: On the "glog", you mentioned that you planned to
invest a large amount of money into Game Maker's
development. Could you tell us some more about that?
MKO: “I cannot reveal the financial details of YoYo Games
at the moment. But we expect to secure considerable
additional funding in the coming months.”
GMT: YoYoGames.com received a huge boost when you
switched to the new server, but it seems to be slowing
down again. Is this from the increased traffic?
MKO: “Partially it is due to increased traffic. Partially it
might be due to the increased amount of data on the
servers (there is not one but actually three, each with their
own task). We are currently investigating this. It is top
priority to solve this. This is also related to the server
architecture. As we want the number of visitors to become
10-fold the coming year we definitely need to extend the
server setup. We are currently discussing how best to do
this.”
GMT: Has YoYo Games lifted a burden from you that GM
once had?
MKO: “It has removed a number of daily tasks from me (for
example handling registrations) and it has removed the
pressure of working on new versions. It has replaces this
with other tasks in the management of YoYo Games. I am
still spending as much time on it as before but it is rather
different work.”
Game Maker – Future
GMT: Game Maker has come further than you originally
planned, do you think Game Maker will become much more
advanced in the years to come?
MKO: “We are discussing the plans for future versions of
Game Maker but we have not made any decisions about
what extra features to add. Currently the focus lies on
writing the runner in C++ and porting the package to the
Mac. Only after that we will discuss further features. I am
sure this will make the package more advanced on one
hand, but actually part of the focus will lie on making it
even easier to use.”
3. EXCLUSIVES
29
Interview With Mark Overmars (Continued)
GMT: A lot of people have fears of Game Maker's securities
issues; Does YoYo Games have plans to fix this in a later
GM release?
MKO: “We will definitely look into security issues. However,
as you know, almost any piece of software can be
cracked/hacked. Actually, it seems many of the Game Maker
users use illegal assets that are obtained this way. It is
even more difficult to make a tool like Game Maker secure
as there is not one game but thousands of games produced
with it.”
GMT: A lot of people have high hopes for GM8, is there
going to be one? And can you tell us any information on
what we should expect.
MKO: “Sure there will be one. But at first sight it might be
disappointing. At the moment we are not adding new
features but simply rewriting it. The first important change
will be supporting other platforms. First of all the Mac and
later our plan is to make it possible to create games for
various consoles. Only after that we will look into new
features.”
GMT: As a lot of people have said, GM 3D functions are in
short supply. Will newer versions of Game Maker have new
functions? If so, what would you say they would be?
MKO: “Game Maker is not meant as a 3D game development
platform. And to be honest, many of the 3D games created
with it are not very good. (They do get rather high ratings
on the site but I guess that is due to the fact that other
developers find it amazing that people manage to do it.
They are not really rating the game play.) As it stands
currently we do not plan to turn it in a 3D game
development platform. We might add more 3D graphics
functions, but that is something else.”
GMT: In years to come do you think that Game Maker could
be considered as a serious game development tool?
MKO: “I think Game Maker is already a very serious game
development tool for 2D games. Many great games are
created with it. The fact that they might not be professional
quality is not due to Game Maker but is due to the
limitations in the possibilities and time of the creators. Most
of the “issues” you see with existing games can be solved
with the current version of Game Maker, in particular by
doing more careful resource management and by using DLLs
and extension packages for certain tasks.”
GMT:
Game
MKO:
about
In newer versions to come, do you think the price of
Maker will go up, down or stay the same, why is this?
“I don’t think it will go up. But we have not decided
this. “
GMT:
MKO:
YoYo
plans
Do you ever plan on stopping the development of GM?
“As I said above, in some sense I already did. But
Games has taken over. And they definitely have no
to stop.”
GMT: Have you enjoyed developing GM for all this time, or
has it become a burden?
MKO: “It is amazing to develop a tool like GM and see what
all the people create with it. Seeing the 10,000 games on
YoYo Games makes me feel very proud that I created the
tool with which people did this. (Although of course it really
is the work of the creators that led to the results, not my
work.) Sometimes it is a burden. Programming in general
comes with ups and downs. And in that sense I am happy
with the new situation. The responsibility simply became too
large.”
29
GMT: Do you plan on making any other programs that you
want to make a profit on, or become popular?
MKO: “I have no plans for anything new at the moment.”
GMT: Will there be an update to fix bugs for Windows Vista?
MKO: “I am sure that bug fixes will be made in the next
version. “
Game Maker – Version 8
GMT: Will there be any other versions, after ‘8’?
MKO: “Yes. We will continue the development the coming
years.”
GMT: Will it be called Game Maker, or are you going to
change the name of it, to appeal to the older generation
more?
MKO: “I don’t see a reason for changing the name. It is
very well known throughout the world.”
GMT: Do you have any screenshots that you can give to us,
run along with this interview?
MKO: “As indicated above there is nothing really new. You
might want to use the mac picture at the glog ”
Game Maker – Mac Support
GMT: Will new version of Game Maker for Mac always be
released on the same moment as the PC Game Maker?
MKO: “No idea. We will first port version 7.0 to the Mac.
After that we will think about how to continue.”
GMT: Will the interface of Game Maker for Mac be as
identical as possible to the PC version?
MKO: “Yes. Although there are of course the typical Mac
aspects (like one menu at the top of the screen. (See the
picture.)”
GMT: Game Maker for Mac, have Mac only features (e.g.
spotlight support)
MKO: “We try not to. Our goal is to make sure that games
created with the Mac version with also run on the PC. We
will aim for the same the other way around, although that is
more difficult as there are certain features in Game Maker
that cannot or are too difficult to emulate on a web. (For
example support for DLLs.)”
GMT: What is your vision for Game Maker and YoYo Games'
future?
MKO: “Our vision is that Game Maker will become a tool
used by a huge number of people to create games and that
it will rival Flash at some moment. For YoYo Games our
vision is that it will really become the YouTube for Games.
That it will attract ten times as many visitors as it does now
(and even more), being primarily players rather than
creators. And that it will become the ultimate resource and
Web 2.0 community for people that want to create games.”
3. EXCLUSIVES
30
Exclusive: MusicLib
By Gmjab
This month we got a special preview of the new MusicLib
website. MusicLib is a site which allows users to
upload/download music for their games. The update will
come out soon. Until then, have a look at the screenshots
below:
Insight Into: CSW
By GreenNex
The game is about a character, which he has no name yet,
has to travel through different locations, for example,
planets, desert, a lake called LakeView, Planet Pyro, and
other amazing locations. He reaches these locations through
paintings on the walls of a chamber called Art Chamber. The
game is based on art. I don't really have a storyline yet, but
I’m working on one. I got my ideas while playing Cave Story
and The Legend of Zelda. I was inspired, and felt an urge to
combine the both games. You should expect to see many
different locations, amazing boss battles, amazing graphics,
many weapons and "tunics" to use. Also, during the game,
the player will run into "warriors" that will give you a mask,
containing his powers, only if you defeat him. The hard part
is that if you lose, you will never have another chance to
challenge him, so be careful not to die.
This platform game is different from other platformers
because it will contain great platforming elements, and an
actual storyline. This game is not only a platformer, but it
also feels like an action/adventure game. There's going to
be many different objects that would be used to change
your gaming experience. From weapons to tunics, and from
items to masks. One main object, which acts as the mouse,
is a pencil that will be used to overcome many objectives
and challenges. Just wait into I have a demo. I didn't have
enough time to put one together, especially because I am
also working on some other games. For example, one called
Toxic-Active, Invaders Invade, Droplet, and Gum Remake.
Here you can view the add-ons menu; able to equip
anything you want.
Just showing how the cane and pencil work.
One of the mini-bosses being attacked by the laser gun.
30
Bam, and the enemy is dead. The triangles are to level-up
your weapons.
3. EXCLUSIVES
31
Insight Into: Oi
By 2D Cube
Introduction
I started work on Oi in the beginning of October last year. I
wanted to make a game with original gameplay, which could
be enjoyed by many people. Oi is a platformer game with a
very particular setting and in it you play a little guy who got
his girlfriend taken away from him. It’s all very mysterious,
and the game starts in a jungle deep down underground.
The graphical style and the music help setting this special
atmosphere, which I’m really fond of. However, don’t be
misled, because the focus of the game is the gameplay, and
not the graphics. The graphical style however does have a
huge impact on the feel of the game and also the storyline.
The story, how little it may be, fits the overall style and was
implemented last.
So, when I decided on this graphical style, I started doing a
little research. I searched for mysterious looking plants,
looked into books about the jungle, and started drawing a
lot of them. I draw everything in Flash, and I have a ton of
different plants now. Some of them only show up one time
in the whole game.
Gameplay
Oi starts out as a standard platformer. And it does look like
a standard platformer which just happens to have an
interesting style. This is understandable, because by looking
at screenshots you can’t see there’s more to the gameplay.
When you start the game, all you can do is walk and jump,
all with the arrow keys. Shortly after you learn to bounce.
This is done pressing the down arrow key. By first jumping
and then bouncing, you can reach higher up platforms.
A little later you get the “magical” ability to fly by defeating
a bat-like enemy. You can only fly for a little bit each time,
but it helps you cross long gaps. Pressing up again after you
jump does flying. All the controls are fitted into just the
arrow keys, and it works.
Graphical style
The graphical style isn’t really anything new. The black
silhouette style is a common thing in graphic design but
hasn’t been implemented in games a lot (especially not in
GM games as far as I know). The game Insanely Twisted
Shadow Planet actually inspired me to use this style (search
it up on YouTube, it looks amazing). The advantages of the
graphical style are that they leave something for the
imagination, because all you see is the silhouette of
everything. This helps creating the mysterious atmosphere.
And, not unimportant, it doesn’t take a lot of time to draw.
Before I chose this style the game looked very abstract (just
colored tiles) and the other objects in the game weren’t
explainable within a logical context. That’s not a bad thing,
and can actually be a good thing sometimes. This is because
a more realistic style often comes with gameplay
restrictions. After I chose for the silhouette style I had to
make sure everything fitted in with it, and that it still made
sense within that style and the story as well. However, that
has not been a problem so far, but it does limit me a little
to what I can do.
So there are 2 special abilities: bouncing and flying. These
have to be used (together with jumping) to solve puzzles
and overcome obstacles. If you know my games, you may
remember these abilities from Blopper. That game I once
made uses the same abilities, but has a very abstract
setting. The abilities are the same, but the way they’re used
for puzzles are often different in both games.
Design process
So let me tell you a bit about the way I design games. Most
of the time it starts with one or more little ideas, and I try
to build a game around that (in my head or on paper). Then
I start making a little engine so I can try out the idea. This
is what I like about Game Maker, because it’s really easy to
set up a small prototype of your idea. This immediately lets
me know if it was actually a good idea, because sometimes,
things I think up turn out to be a little boring. This first
prototype actually lets me know a couple things: Is the
basic idea fun, is it possible to build a whole game from
that, and how difficult is it to make (in terms of
programming).
So, it all starts with a little idea, and most of the time this is
a gameplay mechanic. Graphics and sounds come later, and
I make them so they fit the gameplay, not the other way
around. I am always looking for original, interesting
gameplay mechanics, because the rule-set underneath a
game is what interests me the most. It’s a mysterious thing,
because nobody has been able to define what good
gameplay actually is, and this intrigues me. There is no
31
3. EXCLUSIVES
32
Insight Into: Oi (Continued)
12-step plan to design good gameplay. It’s mostly trial and
error, but I believe that I am getting a better idea of how to
design gameplay. Still, there is so much to it I don’t
understand yet.
One of the reasons I am just as much interested in 2D
games as 3D games is because the number of dimensions is
just a limitation to the rule-set behind the game. The ruleset is what interests me, and often I think 3 dimensions
actually give too much freedom. I think gameplay is (among
other things) a balance between freedom and a rule-set.
Too much freedom is bad, and too many rules isn’t good
either.
However, I am now getting away from the main thing I’m
trying to tell, which is my design process. After I made an
initial prototype and decide to go on with it, it’s a matter of
working and working. More often than not it turns out to be
more work than I thought. During the design process there
are ups and downs. Sometimes I don’t work on a concept
for weeks or months before continuing it. The danger there
is that you lose interest, and may not want to finish it
anymore. The more time it takes, the more new ideas I
come up with that just NEED to be made into games, haha.
The same happens with Oi, but as with other games I’ve
made, I’m sure I will keep working on it.
Insight Into: Chalk
32
Final words
So I’ve talked a bit about my game Oi. But I haven’t told
you about the sound and music yet. It depends on the type
of game, but I think music and sounds are a very important
element to let a game “come to life”. At the time of writing
there are no sound effects in the game yet, but there is
music and it is actually made by my dad. The music really
helps setting the atmosphere; it’s a bit weird, yet exciting
and mysterious. Plus, it’s original music you won’t find
anywhere else.
I hope you enjoyed reading this article, and if you haven’t
tried out Oi, please do so and look forward to the final
game.
By BlueboyX
The name of this game is Chalk. It's basically about a chalkdrawn hero who must save his board before it gets taken
over by the dark forces. As you go through the levels you
will gain power-ups like being able to shoot mini-bullets out
from your mouth. You go through different types of
environments and maybe even different forms. Expect to
see many different types of enemies and many bosses as
well. This game was mainly inspired by my brother
GreenNex, who is also a game maker, and one of his
projects that he never completed. At the time I was lacking
inspiration and needed some kind of creative game that no
one has ever seen before which lead me to create this game
Chalk. I have never really seen another side-scroller game
before made in Game Maker and I did not want to create
another platform game so I went with side-scroller. In my
opinion, this game is going to be great, considering its
originality.
One of the many levels in the game.
You see, the “magic” of the game, for me, sometimes died
down a little. Often when I start work on a new concept I
think it’s the best idea ever, and later on my opinion
changes and it becomes “just a fun idea” but nothing more.
This can be a little depressing, and is the reason I take a
break on the game. It gives me time to come up with things
to make it fun for me again to work on it. It’s just the way
it works for me I guess.
There will be many different enemies and environments.
Oh snap! A boss.
3. EXCLUSIVES
33
Insight Into: Schism
By Anaglyph Gaming
is played as a platformer). Of course, this varied gameplay
poses problems- switching between gameplay styles could
easily become erratic, disorienting the player. We believe
that we’ve solved this issue by giving Schism a consistent
control scheme. Throughout the entire game, you’ll be
moving your character with WASD and aiming/firing with
the mouse (although in a few cases some of the commands
are omitted, and the gameplay is completely mouse based).
From the beginning, Schism was intended to be a complex
and unique endeavor. Our team’s previous projects suffered
from lackluster storyline and oversimplified gameplay,
issues that are not easily remedied in game that’s already
been in development for some time. We wanted a game
that challenged player’s minds as well as their reflexes, but
not in the usual way. Simply put, we wanted to add more
depth to every possible element of our work.
Although little of Schism’s storyline has been settled,
several key factors are concrete enough to be revealed.
Centuries into the future, two thirds of humanity is wiped
out when a colossal asteroid smashes into our moon,
sending shards of rock raining down on the surface. The
remaining humans attempt to colonize any planet capable of
supporting their biological and economical needs, realizing
too late that they had intruded on the politics of an
incredibly unstable galaxy known as the Chronos system.
Each of the four alien races inhabiting this system will play
a key role in the game’s storyline, some more significant
than others.
There will, however, be key differences regarding how this
setup affects your vehicle. Another type of mission is the
tank mission- these missions are similar to the tracked
space shooter missions, expect that you have the ability to
roam freely around your environment, and aiming is more
simplistic. In tracked shooters, aiming is much more
complex. Your fighter is controlled completely by the
mouse. A triangular aiming field is displayed in front of your
ship, and moving your mouse along a horizontal line inside
the field will adjust your ship’s aim. Moving your mouse
outside of the field will bank the ship towards the position
of your mouse. Thus, a balance is achieved between guiding
your ship’s fire trajectory and moving out of harm’s way. In
order to pander to player’s preferences, however, there has
been talk of an adjustable aiming field width: players who
prefer a wide aiming field will be able to aim better but will
be slower to react to enemy bullets; a thinner aiming field
allows much quicker movement, but less aim.
The most important element of the story stems from a
human cult that had disappeared from known space
thousands of years ago, reappearing in the midst of this
tense period as the game’s main antagonist: the Angels.
The Angels wield technology unlike anything any living
creature has encountered before. Although they have not
actually attacked the Chronos system, they plunder
resources from any planet that interests them, and all races
are helpless to stop them. They are simply too powerful.
It goes without saying that the gameplay is the most
important aspect of any game. We wanted Schism to be
unique in this area, too- we’re incorporating multiple types
of vehicle-based shooter gameplay along with some
platforming elements. With the currently planned setup,
different “missions” you are asked to accomplish will have
varying gameplay depending on the specifics of the mission;
for example, near the beginning of the game you’ll be asked
to spearhead a counteroffensive against the Marenox fleet
(a mission that is a traditional top-down tracked space
shooter). But later on, you’re asked to sabotage a Marenox
capital ship that’s guarding an asteroid field (a mission that
33
Two often neglected but equally important elements are the
graphics and sound. Anaglyph traditionally shines in both of
these categories, and we hope to outdo ourselves here.
We’re putting more emphasis on particle effects and
atmosphere throughout the entire game, and the original
soundtrack
(composed
by
PowersWithin
and
ConsciousAutomaton) will provide the appropriate moods.
Samples of the music have been posted in various
Gamemaker forums, GMC included.
In closing, we’re hopeful that Schism will mark a turning
point in our ambitions to become professional-level game
developers. Keep track of our progress on our website for
updates, and watch for the first demo by the end of the
year!
3. EXCLUSIVES
34
Insight Into: Purple
By King_Bowser
Some of you may remember me from my 100 level platform
game Colorblind FIX 3 I finished 2 years ago. Since then I
started many other platform projects but they all got
scrapped at some point because I didn’t like how they
turned out. Making them helped me improve greatly in
Game Maker and I finally thought to make something big. I
always wanted to make a game like Super Mario World – in
that style of gameplay. So I started Purple 4-5 months ago
– I thought the yoyo/frisbee/disc idea was cool and original.
In the game you play as a purple ball with a frisbee-like
weapon that can destroy different blocks and enemies. It’s
kind of like a yoyo too – it eventually returns to the player.
It plays a bit like a Super Mario game (you can destroy
enemies by jumping on their heads), but I tried to be
original where I could. So far I’ve only released a small
demo of Purple, with a small level – to demonstrate the
basic engine. Sometime around Christmas there will be
another bigger demo that will be a lot better and interesting
than the first one… for now, you can check the game’s
progress site at: http://kbg.awardspace.co m
special way for coming up with ideas; they just come in my
head without much thinking about it. I’m crazy, that’s why
I’m coming up with crazy ideas. I even came up with a
character in the game (the devil mini-boss from the video
on my site) from a dream.
I love weird/surreal games that have their own strange and
interesting worlds to explore - like Super Mario, Megaman,
Zelda, Earthbound (I’m in love with this game!) and many
other old games for the Nintendo consoles… They inspired
me to make my own game with my own world. I’m not a fan
of the new popular games – they stake only on
beautiful/realistic graphics and don’t have interesting and
original ideas like the old video games had.
When I make something with Game Maker, I always want it
to look and play perfectly, if I don’t like something, even if
it’s small – I change it until it’s “perfect”. I often criticize
games by other people and I learn from their mistakes. I
like to ask my friends what do they think about different
aspects of my projects – it’s important to hear other
people’s opinions.
Many have asked me how I come up with my game ideas.
For me, thinking of ideas and concepts for my projects is
the most interesting thing in the game making. I love
thinking about games. When the idea for Purple came, I
thought out all worlds in the game, all bosses at the end of
each world (I love video game bosses!) and thought about
many obstacles, powerups, bonuses, etc. I don’t have a
Insight Into: Hex Ball
By Cammieman10
Hex Ball is an adventure/platform game, the main goal of
the game is to collect all of the GloBalls scattered across all
the different worlds and levels. There are 3 different colors
of GloBalls, blue ones stay where they are, green ones
move randomly and bounce off of walls, and orange ones
just bounce off of walls. I don’t quite know yet how many
worlds I plan to have in the game but I know there will be a
minimum of 4. Each world is a fairly large level that
branches off into all the different levels of that world.
There will also be a large room that connects all of the
worlds. In the game you can also collect and use special
“abilities” that allow you to access certain areas of a level or
world, one of these is the Magnetism ability that lets you
stick to magnet tracks on the walls and ceiling, and then
you can get Magnetism Upgrades that allow you to shoot
yourself off of Launchers, and other upgrades I won’t
mention. Another ability is the Air Control ability (Note:
These names are not final....I hope I can come up with
something better) that allows you to hover in mid-air, and
with an upgrade, perform a small mid-air jump. I hope to
have 1 ability per world plus a final world, and I have 4
abilities so far plus upgrades, but I am planning on having
more.
You can use these abilities anytime with no limitations
except for one, you must have the Shadow Rod lit. The
Shadow Rod is a rod with a dark crystal on top of it, there is
a Shadow Rod in every level and every world, as long as it
is not lit the room is covered with a vale of darkness. It
takes 20 GloBalls (Again, not final) to light a Shadow Rod,
and once you do, the shadow will be lifted from that room
and you can then use your abilities in that room.
Hex Ball will feature a unique and original control system,
but you will have to wait for the demo to figure out what it
is. I hope you enjoyed reading about Hex Ball and I also
hope that you all try it when I release the demo
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4. GAMES & REVIEWS
35
Review
Megaman Paradise
Created By: Mixahman
Reviewed By: NAL
As fan games go, the vast majority of efforts by GM users
are utterly dire. Then, occasionally, one will crop up that is
brilliant. This is that brilliant one.
Since I have scarcely played Megaman, I cannot make
conclusive comparisons between the original and this, but I
do know this is one heck of a clone. It looks, plays and feels
like you should have paid for it. It also looks, plays and
feels like it was made by Capcom.
As graphics go, they are direct rips from original Megamans.
The animations are tied together ultra-smoothly, and fit
together perfectly. The backgrounds and tilesets also flow
with the game, with nothing ever looking out of place. The
only thing that prevents graphics getting full marks is, of
course, the un-originality, but in fairness it isn’t that much
of a matter, especially when it all boils down to the
gameplay…
…Which is very good, and very hard. I’m sure Megaman
veterans will find this game a walk in the park. I didn’t. I
got stuck on the second stage for ages, before realising it is
fairly easy (thanks to the lenient health) to just avoid the
enemies and leg it to the end. That and the difficulty are
what puts the gameplay factor down a little, but not enough
to ruin it completely. As with the graphics, a 4 is what I
believe fits the game.
Audio is pretty much exactly the game as the graphics, in
that they are all taken from Capcom’s original games, but
are implemented into this version pretty much flawlessly. I
cannot say much more than that.
One of the best parts of this is the obviousness that
Mixahman has poured effort into it. Nothing feels
unfinished.
Apart from a couple of issues with the in-game text
(grammatical / punctuation errors), this game is as
professional as game making gets. I’m sure that if
Mixahman removed this from the Internet and re-uploaded
it with a price tag, he’d make a bomb.
Put simply, the game is great, moreso for Megaman fans.
It’s not my cup of tea personally, but that doesn’t mean I
cannot see this game is fantastic. Download it, and have
fun.
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4. GAMES & REVIEWS
36
Review
The Demon Within
Created By: KingDiz Entertainment
Reviewed By: NAL
Game Maker is capable of doing great things, but
unfortunately too few people are willing to dip their toe into
the genre that is the RPG. The main reason for this is they
require numerous variables to handle such things as HP,
mana, leveling up and suchlike. Luckily for The Demon
Within, KingDiz has this nailed.
The Demon Within is very polished, and the variable system
is brilliant. Killing enemies brings up your level, and when
you level up, you can pick a magic upgrade or a health
upgrade. Fair enough, nothing spectacular. Collecting such
items as scripts will regenerate lost health/mana (when the
player decides to use them), and books will increase the
maximum you can have.
Enemies are also fairly well made; warriors patrol the area,
following you if they see you, ghosts appear out of nowhere
to launch an attack, and suchlike. It’s also nice to see they
face the direction they’re moving (well, a selection of up,
down, left or right). There is a downfall to them though –
their attacks are boring. Warriors do not swing their swords
when attacking, they simply hold them out, no movement.
Gameplay is generally OK, but gets repetitive. It is mostly
just wandering around, hitting Ctrl to swing your sword, and
sometimes using Space or Shift to use magic. Some enemies
are immune to certain attacks, so you have to learn what to
use and what not to. Generally, your sword is the way to go
– free to use, a fair range, and provided you time its swings
right, it won’t let you down.
Graphics were the up-point in the game. Menus are really
nice to look at, and in-game graphics are consistent. Blood
is not overdone or underdone, damage numbers are not
intrusive, and you can in an instant recognise what
everything is. The heads-up display is in style with the
game, gives you a LOT of information clearly, and is rarely
obtrusive (it got in the way a couple of times when the path
I was taking was at the top or bottom of the view, and it
occasionally made it unclear as to whether the path ahead
was a dead end or not).
Sound is nice, if not very varied. Both SFX and music fit well
with the game. The storyline was OK. It didn’t keep me
riveted though, I only wanted to play on to kill some more
enemies and acquire level-ups.
There are a couple of annoyances I found in the game.
When I first levelled up, I got the box asking whether I
wanted to level up magic or health. While I was deciding,
another enemy had appeared, and was attacking my
character. I couldn’t retaliate until I’d chosen my upgrade.
If I’m going to nitpick, the rocks in the cave were not
traversible. I simply walked into them helplessly, often with
an enemy after me. Also, if you’re walking diagonally your
character does not, he retains an up/down/left/right stance.
My only other niggle was the fact the game forces your
resolution lower.
Otherwise, this is a good, if not remarkable, game. It
doesn’t break any new ground, but it does everything that’s
been done before well, and with style. One of the better
Game Maker RPGs out there.
36
4. GAMES & REVIEWS
37
Review
Pure Action CTF
Created By: dmitko
Reviewed By: gmjab
Pure Action CTF may not have the flashiest name around
and it doesn't have the most flashiest graphics or gamplay.
It is infact a pretty standard game that you would find on
the GMC and on YoYo Games.
As said above PACTF doesn't have flashy graphics. Its
graphics are of low quality, however because of this you can
expect it to run at a good frame rate. The game has just
standard walls, buildings and trees with a low quality
texture. There were some things that I did notice. When
shooting the screen shakes and the aim cursor gets larger.
The game also has some nice lighting on the guns and a
light flashes underneath you when you shoot. There was
also some dust and dirt effects when the bullet hit the
ground.
The sound is alright in this game. Some of the sound effects
were really good and some weren't. I didn't like the one
song that came with the game as I didn't think it suited it.
The game runs without lag, however, contains a few bugs.
The movement of the player could do with a touch up as I
find running is almost as slow as walking. The animation of
running needs improvement as the AI look stiff. The game
has a few different guns that can be used, however it would
be much better if you could have reload packs on the map.
The AI of the enemies isn't very smart and just seems to
use a simple procedure: seek and destroy. The game would
be much better if the maps were larger and if the game had
more objects the hide behind. The same goes for the AI: it
needs to be much smarter then it currently is. One thing I
didn't like was that I have to shoot many times at the AI to
kill them. Besides these improvements the game functions
well and it's good to see that it's not an edit of Mark
Overmars FPS example.
PACTF has a lot of improvements that can be made. At the
moment PACTF is an average game with nothing special
popping out at you. The creator has put a decent effort into
the game.
You can get the source of this game for only $5 for a
limited time only. See page 2 for more details.
37
5. EXTRAS
38
New Years Resolutions
By Gamez93
The start of the New Year, promises us more games,
programs and a little more excitement, we may even hear
some more information about the next version of Game
Maker from YoYo Games. That sounds all good, but what
are some of the GMC’s well-known creators, going to do this
year…
cactus
Starting this December I will be starting work towards going
commercial. I've been in contact with a programmer who I
will be working together with. He's got enough resources to
fund an attempt at making a game that'll let us get closer to
being able to support ourselves as independent developers.
Staff Resolutions
[M]edieval
It's a bit standard I think.. I plan to study GM a bit more,
learn to do the more advanced stuff, start a project, finish
that same project a while later, and maybe sell it (after
setting up an e-commerce system). I will find out what else
I'm going to do, trying to fit my shoes in the trails of the
more expert GM users (YoMamasMama, Cactus, Srehpog,
etc)
Right now we're trying to figure out what platform to
choose, and what kind of game we want to make. This
requires research and checking out the climate of the
different markets.
bendodge
My resolutions for 2008 are somewhat mundane, but here
are my GM-related resolutions. First off, I want to get done
with school before July. (I am homeschooled and have to go
until I finish my books, and getting behind is easy.) I need
to be done with school so I can get other things done.
I also want to release my almost-done game Bouncy, and
finish my nowhere-near-done game ToyTanks2. The latter
will force me to learn multiplayer programming, so that's on
the list too. I have also started learning C#, but progress on
that is slow. Another is to learn Blender, which I love using.
User Resolutions
dino-cool
With Game Maker the possibilities are endless. I hope to
complete the main part of my game Squeebs and begin
another project. Some new ideas I have for my games and
GM are:
1. 3D, this could only be possible thanks to great DLLs such
as Ultimate3D.
2. Physics Games, physics games have proven to be
stunningly fun to play, so I hope to please people by
making some awesome physics games.
I hope to continue using gm until I go to University, and
possibly beyond that, who knows with gm. Anything is
possible.
phubans
Well I certainly have a lot going on in 2008, I daresay.
Aside from having submitted my game MADHOUSE to IGF
(The Independent Games Festival) I've also been in contact
with the president of a game-developing studio here in San
Francisco. We've been talking about getting MADHOUSE
published as a Nintendo DS game. Aside from that, I'm
currently working on a title for the YoYo Games Winter
Competition along with GM user Dead_Heat and I'm also
doing a side project on my own.
RhysAndrews
What it was for the past billion years - finish Conflict:
Arcade! Looking a bit more plausible but it's difficult with all
the obstacles. That, and I do have a project with a very
large concept in my mind but whether I'll have the
motivation or not to get it going, or the resources, is
another story. Other than that, it's just the old "do
whatever comes my way" thing.
38
XBLA was one of our initial thoughts, but after checking up
on it, it seems like a real gamble. We first assumed that the
hard part would be finishing a game, and then getting
Microsoft to approve it. But apparently, even if you get your
game onto XBLA, it doesn't guarantee that you'll be making
enough money to cover your development expenses. Other
alternatives that we weren't so sure about seem to have
better opportunities, but it's becoming apparent that there's
no real easy way of ensuring that your work will pay off.
As for GM I will keep using it to make a few freeware games
every now and then, and definitely for prototyping. I want
to branch out into a few genres that I haven't really got
represented in my back catalogue.
Furthermore, I've been working together with another
developer to "convert" a few of my games to Flash, and I'll
probably be creating a few games exclusively for the
platform together with him.
All in all, it will be a very exciting and stressful year, I
believe. I'll either have to cut down on my game creation
time and get a job or start being able to get a decent
income off of what I create. Will definitely be going all out
to make it big.
Game Fortress
I've been working on getting our site up and running for
quite some time now, which is one of my biggest goals for
2008. Hopefully we see that in the early months of the new
year!
As far as Game Maker is concerned, I've got several
projects planned for 2008. From completing current
projects, to sequels, to completely new games, I've
definitely got my hands full for next year. Early in the year I
plan on releasing Pokemon Twilight, but immediately after
that projects such as Curse Of Kaumaha2, and Aquartist are
brought to the table. After those games are released with a
professional shine, I plan to move on to some of my
completely new projects: The Alchemists Secret, and an
MMORPG. Both of which have been in planning for quite
some time now.
Game Maker is only limited by our own lack of knowledge
and experience. Personally pushing the limit, in reality, is
what creates a true masterpiece. My goal, is to eventually
do just that.
Mr.Chubigans
This new year I want to finish Ore no Ryomi 3, get some
more free games released while transitioning to the
commercial market, and keep using GM for the immediate
future. I've yet to use anything better for non-code junkies
like myself, and I look forward to an awesome 2008!
5. EXTRAS
39
New Year's Resolutions (Continued)
Srehpog
The main thing on the calendar for me is Umbrella
Adventure, a far-too-large exploration platformer I've been
working on since June 2006. Things have been pretty quiet
at far as demos and screenshots go with this game, reason
being that I'd like to keep it reasonably low-key until it's
done, as well as avoiding committing to any early,
unrealistic deadlines for release. Its biggest 'feature' as far
as I'm concerned is that it's grown far larger, more
complex, and more time-consuming than I ever expected,
so finishing it will be something of a weight off all round though probably not before halfway through the year.
What's more exciting in the immediate future is the
response at Eo Community to the YoYoGames winter
competition. A couple of demos were posted and I thought I
might be able to guess who was in with the best chance
immediately, but recently it seems everyone's pitching in
something - and something good. I seem to be the only one
missing out, but I'm too busy with Umbrella to dedicate
time to anything else, and after playing some of the games,
I'm glad I didn't - I wouldn't have stood a chance.
That's basically what my resolution is, in terms of gamemaking; after Umbrella, things are going to be a lot sharper,
shorter and more condensed, both in terms of design and
execution. I've learnt quite a few things since the beginning
of the game, and as it was with Ark 22, it's now mostly too
late to actually apply any of it to my current project. So I
guess my aim for 2008 is to consolidate better designs into
smaller, more 'immediate' games. That doesn't mean I'm
going to be aiming for a release every two months and not
putting effort into the details, just that I'll try not to need
50Mb+ of data and several hundred rooms in which to show
them off.
FredFredrickson
2007 proved to be quite a busy year for me, and I wasn't
able to do as much with game-making as I wanted to. For
next year, I really want to get on the ball with Game Maker
more, and devote more time to finishing up some of my
projects. Despite my current lack of time to actually work on
things, my mind keeps coming up with interesting ideas for
games, so whenever I have the time I should be able to hit
the ground running with something fun. I'd also like to
make a few additions to the Reflect Games system, so I
guess I've got my work cut out for me!
Tahnok
It seems like I always have more GM projects than I can
handle, and 2008 will be no different. I've started
development on Skeleton 2, the full re-write of my 2D
animation software of the same name, and that will carry on
well into 2008 as one of my main projects. I'm also hoping
to release some smaller side project games in a few
months, to expand Tahnok Game's selection and variety.
Speaking of which, TahnokGames.com is getting a little
dated, so I'll be doing a complete overhaul when I find the
time. The idea is to make it easier to keep up to date,
including making the new developer's blog a prominent
feature with regular additions. Looking into the far future,
after Skeleton 2 is released, I would like to finally start work
on a game I've been planning for quite a while, an online
action platformer. It's been on the drawing boards since
before development was started on Aurora, but other
projects have taken priority. Right now, it's looking like it
will most likely take shape as a hybrid of Aurora and Gemini
Chill, combining the best mechanics of each. Also, if anyone
is curious, development of Aurora has been postponed
indefinitely. That's not to say though that the title has been
dropped, it's just yet another project I hope to find time for
in 2008.
So I think you can agree, that there will be a lot of new
projects being released this year, and quite a few more
started.
39
5. EXTRAS
40
Money Giveaway
By Gamez93
This is a GM Tech Magazine first; we are giving away money
as part of our new Giveaway section.
Since this is the first one, we are hoping that things will run
smoothly, here is some information on the first GM Tech
Magazine Money Giveaway.
You can win $5 USD, if you can come up with a slogan for
GM Tech Magazine, the slogan will be used on ad pieces and
in many other places to help get people talking about the
magazine. The contest will run from now, until January 25th
2008.
Introduction
GM Technology Magazine is holding Giveaways, where we
will give away money, or other prizes, the contests are done
from time to time.
.
The Challenge
To come up with a slogan for GM Technology Magazine, it
has been without a proper slogan since the start, and now
is your chance to change all that, by spending a few
minutes to think of a slogan and enter it.
Prizes
$5 sent to the winner via PayPal, that small amount can go
towards something big.
How it All Works
●
You are allowed an max of 5 entries, if you submit
anymore, they will be counted as void.
●
This contest will end on January 25th 2008,
however GM Tech can change that date.
●
Slogans must be original.
●
GM Tech has the right to end this contest if they
wish to do so.
●
The winner will be announced in the next issue of
GM Tech Magazine.
You can enter the contest and see the full Terms &
Conditions by visiting the contest page .
The Game Maker Race
Results
The Game Maker Race is a competition started by GMTech
Magazine and MarkUp Magazine. It was first announced on
October 15th 2007, and now after a month of making, many
weeks of head-to-head battles and voting, the winner has
been announced.
Votes
Game
Percentage
16
Mount Contradiction
8.6%
114
The Meltdown
61.2%
8
Orbiter
4.3%
45
Triton
24.1%
3
Freeze, Melt, Vaporize
1.6%
The Winner is: The Meltdown – by Jelle Straatsma
All Top 20 Games!
For all the top 20 games submitted, the candidate will
receive a free copy of AKUCHIZOKU, by cactus!
All Five Finalists
All five finalists will get one USB Flash Drive each, with a
capacity of 1 GB.
The Winner
In addition to the 1 GB USB Flash drive, the first place
winner will also receive a 2-year free domain, in addition to
free cPanel hosting for that domain. Not only that, but the
winner receives two PC games, out of this selection:
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
40
Fifa '08
Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 Deluxe
Bioshock
Company of Heroes
The Sims 2: Bon Voyage
Worldwide Soccer Manager 2008
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Hard Evidence
Sega Rally
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08
5. EXTRAS
41
Comic
41
By Bob - 11500K
5. EXTRAS
42
Take A Look
42
5. EXTRAS
43
Closing
Well, it's all over now. Issue 10 is finished and we will be
back with our next issue soon. We hope you found this
issue to be a good read. Remember, if you learnt something
new from one of our issues, send us a letter. We enjoy
listening to any experiences people have had with GM or
with this magazine. Thank you for reading and look out for
issue 11 in 2008.
We only ask that you submit content that you have
permission to. Do not submit things that are not your own
unless you have permission of the owner and do not submit
illegal content. At GMTECH we take submissions seriously
and we will do what it takes to keep our forum clean and
friendly.
Next Issue
- Interview with REZ
- Building a basic website
- Building a level editor
- Resources
- And much more...
Freelance writing
Some of you don't have time to join the GM TECH team,
however you may have great writing skills, and if that is the
case, then we welcome you to write articles freelance
(where you work independently and on temporary
contracts) - so you can write articles when you want, and
have no deadlines.
Feedback
Good or bad, we value your feedback. Your feedback lets us
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users. Your feedback can be about (although not limited to)
articles, reviews, gm tips or the magazine in general. You
can leave feedback in either our GMC topic or on our forum.
Submit to us
Yes, we at GM TECH will take almost any submission for a
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the magazine, simply go to our forum and submit in the
“submit” section, registration is required and you will get a
fast reply by one of our friendly staff.
43
If you like the idea of being a freelance writer, check out
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