@ repliers (and Yal who mentioned "generic AI")
Familiarity seems to be where I fall short, then. I've programmed for nearly thirty years now, and I've used GM off-and-on for about fifteen. All self-taught, though, and mostly UI and tools, even commercially. I
have made / worked on games, but very few quite frankly, and every time, something completely different. Games in GM:
- Grid-based maze mystery-exploration-adventure built for the primary purpose of "correctly" using only GM Legacy's built-in features and assets which people said were bad, lol. (Like, you could style the show_message() dialogs very nicely, you know...) I wanted to put this on the Sandbox...
- Point-and-click logic game that could even record your play for self-review and sharing with others. $:^ J
- Grid-based comedic arcade button-masher for old-GMC Jam #3 inspired by "Entombed" for Atari 2600 (and borrowing a reconstructed version of the first game's movement).
- (Souped-up remake/sequel of previous game to be all awesome and monetize and stuff.)
- Educational review quiz to be hosted from a particular website, (replacing a client's tired, old, obsolete Java quiz, and vastly improving on it,) loading each set of questions/answers based on URL and presenting them randomly.
- RPG grown from a ridiculous joke with family, eventually intended for us all to actually work on it when a 3-month RPG contest popped up suddenly.
- EDIT: True vector graphic generic space shooter, finished in 1-2 hours for YYG's Marketplace "audition" as it were.
Ranged from 100% to 20% done, ha. Lost it all because reasons. Along with the source to all my commercial tools. Along with the source to my seriously incredible menu system (which people voluntarily commented on when they saw it in games! ..never mind how sweet it was under the hood) that I was
one day away from publishing to the GM Marketplace. Since then:
- Cute, pretty little point-and-click arcade action for 2-week "Spring Challenge."
- Overhead fetch-quest / crafting / upgrades / adventure for Jam such-and-such as Team Auctor which died a terrible death and finally got slapped together in an hour as a buggy fetch-quest-at-best, ha.
- Started helping @TheUltimate port to GMS, (then we started completely remaking, redesigning,) an action platformer with comedic+dramatic fourth-wall-breaking and typing mechanics.
- Ha, started something with @HayManMarc, but we never even got to the first GMX file. $F^ } (Not that I'm calling it a loss yet!)
- Started a toned-down action platformer with Ult as practice...
Maybe those range from 5% to 20% done? Ha. At least the point-and-click alpha was
playably finished. I also made some games for the TI-82 and voiced the protagonist (and an antagonist) for a commercial game not made in GM. (I don't know who's actually reading all of this. Sorry for rambling. I guess on some level I just want to see this to feel better about
some kind of accomplishment (whether full or partial), despite memories of because reasons.)
Game I
was making for this GMC Jam? Mini-RPG. (
Very short quest to keep the scope.) Familiarity?
- Probably just the characters' feel and literary techniques for humor.
- Oh, and I can whip up a pleasant pause screen pretty quickly; if I'd gotten that far, I probably would've borrowed code I wrote for Ult's and my WIPs (practically from memory of what I'd made and remade years ago heh).
- Likewise, title screens can be simple enough.
Otherwise?
- Party mechanics from scratch.
- Basic movement from scratch.
- Artwork from scratch (although I did look on the Marketplace for sprites; one looked promising for a great price, but for a project I didn't even know might make it or not, any price above free was too much; only made two fully fleshed out chars' sprites, though, and no backgrounds).
Stuff I still needed?
- Movement-following mechanic from scratch; this is what I was working on when I projected the progress vs. time (re: eventual text-heaviness that needed writing) and gave up.
- Blasted menu from scratch (which I shouldn't have to do!!!!!! but anyway).
- Movement-collisions from scratch; I might would've borrowed some of my rewritten code from Ult's and my WIPs.
- Design+mechanics for battle screen from scratch.
- Create/acquire audio and write the mechanic from scratch; I could probably make sound effects as usual, but who knows about music .. maybe look up Kevin McLeod whose work I see everywhere.
- Story's minimum twelve rooms from scratch.
- Surprising amount of dialog from scratch due to game concept despite short quest (I'd say the #1 reason I dropped out of the jam, because this was the reason for the game in the first place).
- Dialog mechanics from scratch.
- General GUI (including prompts to take action) from scratch.
Even stuff I
have built before... I need to rebuild my library.
I don't
want to
rebuild my library: I want
my library. ~exhale~ But whatever.
Since I have a couple more hours available, I might as well go try to make a nice #screenshotsaturday for my latest (public, non-commercial, niche audience) tool WIP. (I still have to use this GIF-making software for the first time. Wow, more unfamiliarity to overcome..... Anyway! Gotta move on.)
Regards, all. Sorry again.