Is gamemaker right for me?

[YukoValis]

Hello. I'm trying to find an engine to make a game with. I intend on creating a more visual novel style, but with RPGish elements. I did some research and most Visual Novel engines aren't usable for my intentions.

I am not afraid to code. I took the time to write down some of the things I'd want from the engine I wish to use. I was wondering if someone here can tell me if these are impossible for Gamemaker studio.

Stats for different NPC's and player.

NPCs to have a schedule to be in certain locations at different times. schedules can be altered by either player input or event flags.

Random event generation when entering into an area.

Player choice leading to a random choice event, and in said event the possibility of another random event or alteration. i.e. You ask an NPC to lead you out of a cave. During this event the NPC picks a left or right path at random.

gif function. (optional)

I really just need a "yeah it can do all that" or a "no.. you probably want something else/make your own engine" : ) Thank you for your time.

 

[poliver]

yes

gamemaker is the easiest to pick up engine that doesn't limit you on 'game design' issues like you described as they are completely up to you

 

[JackTurbo]

Yeah Game Maker can handle pretty much all you're requests there, although some things might be a bit more involved/code heavy than with a more specialised visual novel tool.

 

[Bingdom]

Well, the only limitation with game maker at this point would be your ability to create games. Game maker isn't as restricted as it used to be.

 

[YukoValis]

Hmm. Ok Thank you all. The only question now seems to be Gamemaker 1 vs 2.

I've heard good things about 2, but also how easy it is to rely on the drag-n-drop or other conveniences that could hamstring your game down the line.

 

[Bingdom]

Well, if you've just started with game maker... There's no legal way to get a gms1 license without buying a gms2 license.

I don't see anything wrong with jumping straight to gms2. You'll sometimes run into tutorials that's based on gms1.4 (but there's not much of a difference).

My advice is to skip DnD and go straight for GML. If you've never programmed before, it will be a difficult start but it's worth it in the end.

 

[JackTurbo]

Yoyo only sell licenses to GMS2, although a valid GMS2 license does give you access to 1.4 as well.

You can get the creators edition of GMS2 for $39. Its a one year subscription but if you decide to keep GMS at the end of it you can upgrade to the full desktop version (usually $99) with a 30% discount.

As for which to use, I'd say you may as well just crack on with GMS2. If you have no prior experience with GMS then the argument for GMS1 is fairly small in comparison to GMS2 which has a number of new/improved features.

 

[poliver]

second the Bingdom, skip dnd. with drag'n'drop you might encounter limitations eventually.

it might take a month or two of getting used to coding with gml (if you've never coded before) but its a better option in the long run.
if you're stuck you can always ask for help over here, reddit or there's also great discord channels where you can chat to people/ask for help - /r/GameMaker, GameMaker Mentors (Help Server)

 

[YukoValis]

hmm. yeah I don't want to be using DnD. I have a friend who purchased an extra license for game maker 1, but if 2 is better in every respect I'll try for that as well. At least hit the free trial that seems to be there. Thank you all for your help. I really do appreciate it.

 

[Genetix]

Game Maker is definitely what you are looking for - all of the concepts are possible. I've created a Visual Novel / RPG / Choose Your Adventure series with GMS called College Days and the series has over half a million downloads.

I've been thinking about building a specific Visual Novel engine with GMS. Definitely the right software!

Let me know if you have any specific questions building your game!

Here is a link to my game College Days if you want to see what GMS can do:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.genetix.College_Days

 

[Yal]

GMS2's sprite editor lets you preview animations in the editor and draw stuff while it's animating, not sure whether it's useful for a VN but if you love drawing ambient effects it could come in handy.
All the other things you mention are possible; the hard part with conversations is that you need to come up with a way to represent event data. One approach I tried recently was to store scripts and associated parameters in a queue list, it gives you a very powerful way to run arbitrary code while still having reusable chunks (e.g. the same script is used to create every message) but needs a bit of setup. It's included in YaruDanmakuEngine in case you're interested in checking it out, I originally got the idea as a way to control the enemy waves but realized it would be easy to adapt for cutscenes as well.

Branching is a bit trickier, but I'd guess the easiest way is to just have lots of binary choices (either pick thing A or thing B) which can come up at any time: for instance, if you gave a girl her favorite food a bunch of cutscenes could have some extra dialogue where she talks about how that was the perfect date, and if you instead gave her the food she hated she complains about your taste instead in an alternate scene. And if nothing remarkable happened that time, just don't have any special scene about it.

To store this game state, it's useful to have an array of "flags", aka true/false values that represent whether you picked a certain choice or not. GM doesn't have a boolean data type, but this means you can let your flags have more than 2 values if you want to, so it's not really a problem. Having the flags in an array means you can easily iterate over them, which makes it easier to load/save, and also check a range of flags' values and stuff like that. There's other benefits as well, but most of them really boils down to "it's easier to code"

 

[YukoValis]

I'm not sure what is more scary. The fact that I had about a dozen ideas run through my head while reading everything you said Yal, or that I understood most of it in general. : ) I'm good on pixel stuff, I have a nice program for that which I will just import. Aseprite is a very powerful tool for that kind of work. I was just concerned with being able to set up random actions and events. In some ways I want the NPC to decide a few things. But I will get there eventually, first thing is first, in figuring out the best way to buy GM2. : ) steam is 100$ so I guess that is it. Thankfully Christmas is coming up :3

 

[IngoLingo]

If I can make a Monster Collecting Fighter RPG with Game Maker Studio, you can for sure make a Visual Novel RPG with Game Maker Studio.
I wish you luck in your endeavor!

 

[Yal]

While waiting for GMS2 / Christmas, it might be worth starting to look into general coding stuff (GML is very similar to C++, and overall it's pretty painless to apply stuff you learn in one programming language to others - a lot of the big common ones have almost identical structure, just with different bells and whistles).

The two most powerful things I've mastered recently are "finite state machines" and "lambda expressions", and while it's not exactly super-intuitive concepts, it's good to know the keywords

The latter basically means that you can pass scripts as arguments and put them in variables, this gives you a powerful way to extend previous functionality. For instance each gift could have a script attached that runs when you give it to someone; this script would normally just increase or decrease a bunch of variables, but you could also add in some checks that makes it schedule special events if certain conditions are met (e.g. if you give someone something for christmas instead of a normal day). It can take a while to realize when it's the best option - so think carefully whether adding tons of scripts to manage is a good or bad idea.

And finite state machines basically means having your step event code (i.e., code that runs continuously each game frame) look like this:

switch(state){
  case 0:
    //do some stuff
  break

  case 1:
    //do some other stuff
  break

  case 2:
    //do some completely unrelated stuff
  break
//etc
}

This lets you easily ensure an object that can do different things only does exactly one of them at once, and you have clear and well-defined transitions between states. For instance, a message box would start in a 'fade in' state, then go over to 'print one letter at a time' state, then go to 'be fully printed and wait for the player to press a button to close it', and finally 'fade out', before destroying itself and telling the cutscene controller to advance. This works both for objects that are supposed to follow a timeline and for objects that have complicated AI routine (switching between searching for the player and hunting them down, etc) and is really easy to do once you get used to it... and you can even combine it with using scripts as lambdas for basically-infinite state machines!

//Entire step event logic
script_execute(state);

I hope this didn't confuse you too much

 

[YukoValis]

I am so saving that for later.. lol that is a great idea Yal. Thank you. : )