Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?
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This is the first time I've seen a Humble Bundle with dev tools. Are they worth having?
Seeing the source code for some completed games might be interesting, as a learning tool. But I've never heard of "GameMaker" studio.
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@Lorne-Kates I've heard it's crap.
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@Lorne-Kates said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
But I've never heard of "GameMaker" studio.
It's the engine behind games such as Undertale and ... uh...
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hatfall?
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@Lorne-Kates said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
But I've never heard of "GameMaker" studio.
It's a drag-and-drop game engine. Unity is better, and less buggy.
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@Lorne-Kates said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
But I've never heard of "GameMaker" studio.
I used it ages ago. If nothing significant changed: it's a pretty intuitive thing to work in and a good learning tool (which was its original purpose). It single handedly taught me basics of OOP back in the day when I didn't even know what OOP was. So, if you want to use it to teach programming to someone, I'd say it's rather good.
For anything more serious... well, it's rather slow and has poor (no?) portability. Given that, and the fact you're already an experienced programmer, I'd say "pass" for your own use, you'll be better off with Unity/MonoGame/Unreal/whatever.
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@Lorne-Kates They had one with RPGMaker last year (I think).
I was looking into this yesterday and the consensus seemed to be that it was fine for simple 2D games but very soon became frustrating for anything more complex.
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@ben_lubar said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
It's the engine behind games such as Undertale and ... uh...
it's also the engine behind more than a few "visual novels"
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I used it for part of a university course and it seemed very basic and limited, but I have seen a space shmup game (which unfortunately I can't remember the name of) which blew my mind when I found out it was made in GameMaker, so apparently it can be used to make real games.
Also I guess Undertale but I haven't played it yet.
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Since you already know to program, it's not really for you. If you have a kid just getting into coding, sounds like the perfect gift.
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Too bad @blakeyrat isn't around these days. I'm sure he'd have a thing or two to say about games made with GameMaker and RPGMaker.
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@Fox said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
It's a drag-and-drop game engine. Unity is better, and less buggy.
I'm guessing Unity takes a bit longer to learn for non-programmers.
Like a few weeks instead of a few hours.
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@accalia It's also the engine behind (I assume) all the games on their showcase.
@Onyx said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
has poor (no?) portability
If I'm going off of their listing for the Pro studio (which is what the bundle gives for the lowest tier), you can do PC, Xbox One, PS3, PS4 and PSVita development (the latter four are dependent on accounts/agreements with Microsoft and Sony). If you beat the average, you get HTML5, and if you go over $15, you get iOS, Android, and UWP (Win 10 metro, currently only desktop but "phone support coming soon"). So, the current version does look fairly portable. The only options you wouldn't end up with are Windows Phone (I assume WinPhone 7 or 8/8.1) and Tizen (oh nooooooooooo).
I remember the much older version of Game Maker which, yeah, would do drag & drop, but you could "get into code" on some things for better handling. In fact, in that older version, if you wanted really anything, you kinda had to "go into the code" for rules or triggers or whatever else you set on things.
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@anonymous234 said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
@Fox said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
It's a drag-and-drop game engine. Unity is better, and less buggy.
I'm guessing Unity takes a bit longer to learn for non-programmers.
Like a few weeks instead of a few hours.
Probably, but then it could very well take you twice as long to make a game in Game Maker.
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@ChaosTheEternal ok, so they added portability, fair enough, as I said it was a while.
@ChaosTheEternal said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
I remember the much older version of Game Maker which, yeah, would do drag & drop, but you could "get into code" on some things for better handling. In fact, in that older version, if you wanted really anything, you kinda had to "go into the code" for rules or triggers or whatever else you set on things.
Kinda. It had basic logic and variable manipulation using blocks. Also, some base class methods were blocks "change sprite" and such. For coding, you had a "Script" block you'd drag in and edit that. I don't remember a way to see the code of anything you did purely in blocks though.
Before I gave up on it my projects actually did end up as a bunch of script blocks, anything else was just too clunky once you know how to do it in code. Which, I guess, was the original intention.
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@ChaosTheEternal said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
If I'm going off of their listing for the Pro studio (which is what the bundle gives for the lowest tier), you can do PC, Xbox One, PS3, PS4 and PSVita development (the latter four are dependent on accounts/agreements with Microsoft and Sony). If you beat the average, you get HTML5, and if you go over $15, you get iOS, Android, and UWP (Win 10 metro, currently only desktop but "phone support coming soon"). So, the current version does look fairly portable. The only options you wouldn't end up with are Windows Phone (I assume WinPhone 7 or 8/8.1) and Tizen (oh nooooooooooo).
If you're gonna buy this, it only makes sense to buy the full package. The time investment into learning this will make any financial investment seem trivial in comparison.
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@ben_lubar Iji, Hyper Princess Pitch, Hero Core ...
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@accalia said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
@ben_lubar said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
It's the engine behind games such as Undertale and ... uh...
it's also the engine behind more than a few "visual novels"
Isn't Ren'Py more widely used for that?
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@aliceif said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
@accalia said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
@ben_lubar said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
It's the engine behind games such as Undertale and ... uh...
it's also the engine behind more than a few "visual novels"
Isn't Ren'Py more widely used for that?
probably, it's built for making visual novels after all.
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I'm buying it just to peruse the source code of various games.
At this point, I'm more interested in architectural design choices than prefab game engines. I just want to pull them apart and see how they work.
Don't Starve came with some source code and there was really interesting stuff in there!
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@hungrier It's also used in Rivals of Aether, which is phenomenal.
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@thegoryone said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
Unity is surprisingly complex. Having said that, I did push myself into using C# (Unity's version, anyway) to learn something new instead of falling back to their Javascript
implementationabomination.I like Unity, but I don't see where they get off calling that JavaScript.
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@error said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
I like Unity, but I don't see where they get off calling that JavaScript.
Their "C#" isn't much better tbh. It fits the standards, but it's old.
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@error said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
@thegoryone said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
Unity is surprisingly complex. Having said that, I did push myself into using C# (Unity's version, anyway) to learn something new instead of falling back to their Javascript
implementationabomination.I like Unity, but I don't see where they get off calling that JavaScript.
Mind you, the whole point of that is to counter the general impression that Unity (and particularly the Unity Store) is only good for asset-flipping, something Sterling himself has railed about for literally hours on end (even if you excluded the entire DigiHom nightmare, which once again is mostly centered on the fact that the Romine brothers have never build an asset of their own in their lives and have a habit of reskinning their own games to sell them under different names, sometimes six or seven times in one day):
This playlist is nothing but Jim Sterling complaining about different asset flips, and even it is just the tip of the shitberg.
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@Fox said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
@Lorne-Kates said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
But I've never heard of "GameMaker" studio.
It's a drag-and-drop game engine. Unity is better, and less buggy.
Unity is better than something? If that's the case, one should steer clear!
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@error said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
At this point, I'm more interested in architectural design choices than prefab game engines. I just want to pull them apart and see how they work.
To aid in your own inspiration, or just out of curiosity?
The general rule is to "make games, not engines," so there will probably be a lot of ad hockery. Even more so when many projects are built by teams of 23-year-olds working 80 hour weeks for $40k per year.
I have the luxury of no hard deadlines on my project, and I'd think you'd still probably be horrified at some of the design decisions therein because the design is to the requirements of the game, and not necessarily to make the most flexible and extensible system ever.
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@Groaner said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
To aid in your own inspiration, or just out of curiosity?
A bit of both. I have several game side-projects, and they continually evolve as I find new ideas and techniques.
@Groaner said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
I'd think you'd still probably be horrified at some of the design decisions
I was pleasantly surprised by Don't Starve.
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There is a new bundle with Clickteam Fusion at the moment.
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@hungrier said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
I have seen a space shmup game (which unfortunately I can't remember the name of) which blew my mind when I found out it was made in GameMaker
My brother and cousin worked on one of those. I can't remember the name of their game, either, and I'm not sure whether they made it publicly available online. It had some sort of silly name like "______ Blasters", but I forget. But it was pretty impressive for a couple beginners.
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GameMaker at least has a scripting language behind it; GML http://docs.yoyogames.com/source/dadiospice/002_reference/001_gml language overview/401_01_program.html
Clickteam Fusion meanwhile has an event editor and (as far as I know; it was true for the previous iteration Multimedia Fusion) only an event editor. No code to graduate to.
I learned how to program by wiring things up in Multimedia Fusion. I remember it fondly.
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There are also bundles for Axis Game Factory and GameGuru.
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@djls45 said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
@hungrier said in Game Maker Humble Bundle: any good tools in here?:
I have seen a space shmup game (which unfortunately I can't remember the name of) which blew my mind when I found out it was made in GameMaker
My brother and cousin worked on one of those. I can't remember the name of their game, either, and I'm not sure whether they made it publicly available online. It had some sort of silly name like "______ Blasters", but I forget. But it was pretty impressive for a couple beginners.
I remembered the game, and found it online. It's called Galaxy Belchers. My brother added a lot of the features that were requested, but I think the hard drive crashed that he had it all on, so he lost all the GM configuration files.
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New Humble Bundle in the same vein, but with books instead of tools/samples:
Humble Book Bundle: Code Your Own Games
Get a library of game development books and support charity!
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