6 replies to this topic

[Tartine]

Hello guys !

So, I'm new here on the GM forum. I discovered GM few weeks ago, I did a lot of tutorials and now I'm ready to try to do my first own game.
But before to start, I still have a couple of questions that I'm struggling with.

So, basically, my game will be a plateformer.

Which size should I use for my tiles ? 16*16? 40*40? etc. What could help me to choose?
Which size should I use for my sprites ? 16*16? 40*40? etc. What could help me to choose?
Which FPS should I use for my game ?
Which screen resolution will be the best ? The room size will be affected by the screen resolution I'll choose ?
Finally, I found a platform engine for GM. Do you think it will help me doing a plateform game ? The guy who did Spelunky use this engine, so I guess it's good : http://martinpiecyk....gine/index.html

May be this kind of questions are obvious but actually they prevented me to start. So, if you could help me find answers, I'll appreciate it.
Or if you have documents or links that could help me to find what I'm looking for, it will be nice too.

I know my english isn't very good so if you don't understand something, don't hesitate to ask which part you don't understand.

That's it for now ! Thanks you very much and have a nice day.

Edited by Tartine, 09 May 2012 - 07:44 PM.

[mAnIk800]

It's all really personal opinion but i do my sprites and objects in multiples of 8's (8x8,16x16,24x24 onwards).
resolution again is personally prefrence but i like to work at minimum of 800x600 if im doing detailed sprites, and default size if im doing basic sprites.

Yea the platform engine will help you out and learn the coding (DnD?) oh how it works and also the gravity factor

And FPS most can go up to 60 but use what makes your animation and sprites smoothest, but i actually think there is a FPS Guide depending on 2d or 3d or genre or something but im not sure on that

Hope this helps

mAnIk800

[MonkeyMaw]

Well first off, welcome to the forums Tartine!

Sprite and tile size: If you are just going to go with pixel style graphics, I'd recommend starting off with 16x16 tiles. It's actually very common and 16x16 tiles and sprites are pretty easy to deal with artistically. For sprites I'd recommend the same. However maybe you wish to have your characters to be a bit taller. You could make them 16x24 or 16x32 even!

Room and view size: For the sake of simplicity I would suggest just starting out with a room size of 640x480, a view size of 320x240, and scaling up the graphics to fit a 640x480 port. That may sound confusing but if you don't upscale 16x16 sprites and tiles, they will be very small on the screen. You will run into a bit of a blur problem though. GameMaker doesn't handle scaling pixelated graphics well. I do have a fix for you though, right here.

FPS: I like 60. 30 is common and certainly fine although I feel 60 fps just runs smoother.

Engine: Martin's engine is nice but a bit complicated. If it seems too daunting for you, try this one. It's called the Grandma Engine and it's a very solid engine. It lacks some of them fancy elements but it can be built upon easily once you figure it out.

There is a lot of good GameMaker information right here. I hope I helped you out and good luck to you!

Edited by MonkeyMaw, 26 April 2012 - 02:47 AM.

[Tartine]

Wow thanks you guys for the answers. It really help but it also bring more questions

Yea the platform engine will help you out and learn the coding (DnD?)

What DnD is ? In fact, actually, the only language I would like to learn is the GML and I'm wondering if Martin's engine use GML as coding language ?

Room and view size: For the sake of simplicity I would suggest just starting out with a room size of 640x480, a view size of 320x240, and scaling up the graphics to fit a 640x480 port. That may sound confusing but if you don't upscale 16x16 sprites and tiles, they will be very small on the screen. You will run into a bit of a blur problem though. GameMaker doesn't handle scaling pixelated graphics well. I do have a fix for you though, right here.

I'm wondering if this fix for the scale problem is easier to work with for a noob: http://www.yoyogames.com/tech_blog/8
Or may be it's not the same kind of thing at all.


Finally, it's looks like using a platform engine will help me, but actually, I'm not sure to understand why it will help me and why my game will be better if I use it.

Thanks again. I really appreciate your help. Have a nice day.

Edited by Tartine, 26 April 2012 - 01:33 PM.

[mAnIk800]

Sorry Dnd - i ment drag and drop actions instead of coding (GML)

[Tartine]

Thank you for the answers. I think it will be enough too start.

For which engine I should use, it's not clear for me but I'll dig to find what it's the best solution

[MonkeyMaw]

I'm wondering if this fix for the scale problem is easier to work with for a noob: http://www.yoyogames.com/tech_blog/8
Or may be it's not the same kind of thing at all.

I apologize for taking so long to answer that question. It's not the same thing. Although scaling can also introduce the problem explained in that article, blurring of the tiles and sprites is what I was referring to.

Thank you for the answers. I think it will be enough too start.

Good luck to you!

For which engine I should use, it's not clear for me but I'll dig to find what it's the best solution.

This is possibly the smartest thing I've ever read coming from a new person in regards to GameMaker. Search is your friend and so is Google. There is an awesome user here too named MonkeyMaw who will answer all he can for a small fee of $10000000 dollars. Have fun