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[MaximumZero]

GETCHO FOKEN GAYUM MAYKERS HEAR

this flew into my inbox. free, legit game maker until the second of march. get it now and wait until they make a promotion that lets you update to pro for free like i did!

which is why i got this in my inbox ror

So, Game Maker is free right now. I know practically nothing about it, but picked it up anyway, and I hope to spark a discussion about it in this very thread.

Anyone have any experience with this beastie? Where should I start if I want to make a roguelike?

[Sirus]

Probably want to try something else if you wanna make a roguelike :/

[MaximumZero]

Booooo! Well, what can I do with this thing?

[Sirus]

Well, some folks would say that you couldn't do anything at all with Game Maker.

I say you can make stuff like this if you really know what you're doing. Otherwise you can make simple puzzle, platformer, or shooter games with a bit of practice.

[Arx]

Other folks will point you at Spelunky as an example of what can be done. Edit: also Angry Laser Space.

I used to play around with it a bit, but I got bored and started learning other languages.

[chaoticag]

Well, Iji and Spelunky aren't the only two games that were made with game maker. Hyperlight drifter is also being made with it, and so was Nidhogg and Hotline Miami. You can do a lot with game maker from what I've seen, just, it's going to be some work. I'd say it's at least one of the better tools to make a 2d game, while Unity is the go to for 3d ones.

[MaximumZero]

OK. Since 2d is the direction I intend to go anyway, I'll give the tutorials a shot when I get some free time.

[Shook]

I can confirm that Game Maker is actually pretty cool for 2D games, though it's not the most optimized thing ever (it can easily run slowly if you add too many things). If you need a few pointers for whatever reason (not that there are that many things to point out), you can poke me if you want.

[Johuotar]

Thanks for the heads up! Ill try it right now!

[Mesa]

I can name quite a few (not really) amazing Game Maker games:

- Iji
- Jumper series (the second one in particular)
- Nuclear Throne
- Spelunky

So yeah, while it is possible to make good games with Game Maker, it does have its limits.

[Shook]

Don't forget Gunpoint and Risk of Rain. :v
It's honestly not really that limiting, for the most part you can make it do exactly what you want it to with some coding and clever thinking. GML, the internal programming language, has pretty much all features that Lua or Java has, and is in fact quite similar to those in structure.

[MaximumZero]

Oh, good. I took a JAVA class in college. I'll take a look and see if I can do anything, but I'm still not much of a programmer.

[itisnotlogical]

It's doable. I used it many years ago and got frustrated pretty quickly, but I was a newbie to anything and everything at the time though.

[WillowLuman]

When I was very little, I made an entire game with it. It was a simple, arcadey game, but it wasn't too hard. You can do quite a few things with it, especially if you experiment a lot.

This version seems highly different than the one I remember, though.

[Biag]

The general sentiment I've heard about Game Maker is that programming-oriented types find it limiting, while design types find it pretty useful. It's definitely an easy-to-learn, hard-to-master kind of thing. Personally, I think Unity2D has a better workflow, but if you're really jiving with Game Maker then more power to you.

Don't forget Gunpoint and Risk of Rain. :v
It's honestly not really that limiting, for the most part you can make it do exactly what you want it to with some coding and clever thinking. GML, the internal programming language, has pretty much all features that Lua or Java has, and is in fact quite similar to those in structure.

I didn't know Risk of Rain was Game Maker! It makes a lot of sense now that you point it out, though. That game is great.