Discussion What Was Your GML Breakthrough?

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Thunder Lion

Guest
Hey guys I want to know what you learned in Game Maker that completely revolutionised your game making abilities. They have to be self taught without direct reading of the manual (collective information is okay, but no I read XYZ and this helped me).

My personal biggest innovations:
The discovery of variables, I believe I was using a game maker example in game maker 6 and seen how in drag and drop they had been using the var icon. This made me discover tge use of variables which eventually got me into using the gml language as it cleared up things for me.
The discovery of the if statement again from examples I learned how to make conditionals using variables and also how to manipulate values.

These two allowed me to create various systems like inventory, dialogue trees, variable basedevent markers instead of object based.

The step events, when I first started using game maker 6 i had no idea how to keep my character from constantly scrolling in any given direction. One day i see step event and im like hey ill use this and see what it does. I added speed icon with 0 and wala my character stopped moving it was also applied to monsters who i used the no key function to control their motion so when i pressed any key they'd go whatever direction they last went. This wasn't good.

So for me:
Variables and If statements created new possibilities plus helped me get into gml.

Step event provided me new ways to better control things and made me more comfortable with trying new events and actually begin to try to read the manual.

Now only if i had the same drive as i did then, i made so many games but because of the limited internet back then i didnt know how to distribute them and they are long gone.
 

Rob

Member
I don't think my learning has had any revolutionary moments in it. It's more like slow, steady evolution for me.

I was able to make a small prototype in just a few days recently, which would of taken me weeks previously I'm sure. Things like that let me know I'm making progress.
 

Niels

Member
1.Understanding the difference between a object and a instance :)
2.When I finally understood what arrays, and ds_grids were..
 
I always wanted to make Halo 2 the way I envisioned it was going to be, but could never find an actual way to program it to my complete control, as products like FPS Maker were really limited in scope, even if I didn't know a single thing about programming. I eventually discovered Game Maker 6.1 through an RPG website when RPG Maker 2K3 was what I was using to make games (anything but RPGs). I then downloaded a really crappy 3D paintball example and discovered how code order has a huge effect. Every time you looked up or down completely (which was limited to a range of about 80 degrees altogether) the camera would flicker because the movement cap came before the actual movement. I switched the order around and it just stopped at its maximum which I increased to 178. It was really invigorating to have proper camera control and I felt like I could do anything. After that, I was quickly picking up GML and development concepts and was well on my way to making a Half-Life 2 clone with some new levels before eventually feeling skilled enough to take on the behemoth that is my current FPS, Let Live.
 
Switching from Drag and Drop to GML.

Also arrays (and eventually) ds_grids. And like, for loops. For the longest time I did ridiculous if else chains. And also the draw GUI event.
 
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dannyjenn

Guest
Switching from Drag and Drop to GML.
Same here.

Also, three other things come to mind:
- learning to use the trig functions
- learning to use the binary file functions
- learning to use the bitwise operators
 
I never had a breakthrough with gml. I learned BASIC and C# before I started using GML for the game I'm making, so I was just like "oh, okay," after skimming through the manual, lol
 
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BearlyBros

Guest
Learning how to use state machines changed how I programmed pretty much everything.
 
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Capptianm

Guest
Before I started using Gamemaker, I had taken a robotics course that covered programming, so I knew some of the basics of coding, like while and if loops.

One recent development for me has been the switch statement, which I can see making things a lot easier for me in the future
 
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the519

Guest
Learned basic C# in highschool so it was pretty easy for me to pick up GML because there very similar.
 

K12gamer

Member
Learned basic C# in highschool so it was pretty easy for me to pick up GML because there very similar.
When I was in Highschool...I don't think computers were invented yet...:(
I never learned C#...so currently Drag and Drop is my only option.
Oh...and when someone on the forum says go out and learn coding...it's easy...
That's like me telling them to go out and learn Japanese...It's easy. :oops:
 

Coded Games

Member
Oh...and when someone on the forum says go out and learn coding...it's easy...
That's like me telling them to go out and learn Japanese...It's easy. :oops:
That is not even a slightly valid comparison. I've been learning Japanese for around the last 4-5 years and programming is so much easier. At the very least, if you know how to read English and know basic math operators you can read a lot of programming languages. Good luck reading Japanese if all you know is English. Comparing programming languages and actual languages is pretty much pointless due to how fundamentally different they are.
 

Jabbers

Member
I can relate to OP. I started using GM when I was about 9 and I had no meaningful computer science knowledge. If one is new to this whole business and they want to know how to start learning GML in an efficient way, then the fundamentals are the same as any programming or scripting language: variables (and how to manipulate them), arrays / lists, data types, basic syntax rules. Once I understood these concepts in a basic way, the difference to my work was day and night, as you can imagine. Everything else can be picked up using the manual as and when you need new functions. Without the aforementioned knowledge, you'll get nowhere fast. Prior to understanding how variables worked, my childhood GM games were virtual Rube Goldberg machines.
 
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