6 replies to this topic

[Joeben123]

When I was 9 or 10 my school had a week-long summer day-camp called making video games. A group of 15 classmates and I were given Gamemaker 7 and were showed how afew of the drag and drop actions were used. Besides that and some other basic knowledge (like what "relative" meant), we were left on our own for a day to figure it out. Every day they would show us somthing different like how variables worked or what you could use alarms for. By halfway through the week we all chose a basic type of game to make. I made a simple top down shooter and I though it was the best game ever created. By the end of the week I was convinced that I wanted to make video games forever. It has changed my life and inspired me to study hard in math. A year after that camp I started using GML and explored languages like BASIC. I am now planning to go to college for a degree in computer science and continiue game development as a hobby. Unlike C++ is extremely user friendly and it is a great tool for teaching and learning.


Thank you Gamemaker and teachers that believe in it. <3

[Jack Indie Box]

i completely agree. I started game maker before i could properly read. And I have nothing but praise for it and its learning curve and teachabillty. I have seen it used in schools and would love to see it used even more

[D3l1v3ryb01]

I dont know how you guys did it. Jack, I read in another post that you taught yourself GML?

Man I'm doing that right now, or at least trying. But I've never programmed anything before. I'm at the point as you said "I cant even spell the alphabet" in the programming world. I dont get the syntax, or variables, I dont get how alarms are used lol. I'm just lost as lost gets.

Drag and drop, well that's a different story, anybody can Drag and Drop. But I want to use absolute GML. Its just proving to be a nightmare for me =(.

[David Batty]

I dont know how you guys did it. Jack, I read in another post that you taught yourself GML?

Man I'm doing that right now, or at least trying. But I've never programmed anything before. I'm at the point as you said "I cant even spell the alphabet" in the programming world. I dont get the syntax, or variables, I dont get how alarms are used lol. I'm just lost as lost gets.

Drag and drop, well that's a different story, anybody can Drag and Drop. But I want to use absolute GML. Its just proving to be a nightmare for me =(.

Not anyone can drag and drop, it still has to be learnt, don't dismiss it, learn GM with drag and drop first, then convert any one action in to code later. Learn alarms and everything else in drag and drop first then only later on go to gml.

ps. I sent a reply to your dm.

[Joeben123]

Haha I went on the forums for the first time in a few months and found that someone had posted on one of my threads. As an update to my coding life I have now moved on from Gamemaker and only use it for prototyping before I code a new game engine. I now use C++ and a graphics API called SFML to code top down games completely from scratch. I had never realized how much stuff Gamemaker actually did for you until I tried to do it myself . And D3l1v3ryb01, learning some basic programming with another language might give you some insight into GML. Also David is right in saying that it would be good to look at the drag and drop functions just so that you can learn basic game development techniques before trying to tackle your first language AND game development at the same time.

[D3l1v3ryb01]

Thanks for the tips guys =).

For what its worth. This is the first game demo thing I ever made in Game maker, and it was all done with drag and drop. There are 3 levels, and I've been told its "to hard", but all three levels CAN be finished lol, as I've done it before.

Needless to say, i was so unhappy with it that I quit trying to learn game maker for about a year 0_o. Now I'm back and I've been trying to learn the GML and eliminate my need to use DnD. Eventually I hope to get into Javascript and C++ ect. But for now, GML will be my stepping stone.

This is another Exe of the project I currently have going on that's been done entirely by GML. So far, the player has nothing to do, literately, other than roam around a room lol. But you'll see what I've learned so far.

[Joeben123]

I took a look at both games and I have a question: Where did you get your graphics resources for the second game? Like you said, it lacked game play elements, but the animation quality and HUD look pretty awesome. I mostly make top down shooters like that but I am a horrible pixel artist so I have always had problems finding good sprites and animations for my projects. Did you find it on a site or did you do those yourself? If you did you should really look into spriting for some more advanced coders.