City Builders in Game Maker Studio

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Richard Woodard

Guest
I have done some small scrolling games, and some platformers. I'm pretty familiar with the software, and I'd like to explore what options I might have in creating an Age of Empires style came, city building with combat. If anyone has any links to any tutorials they found especially useful, or any pointers for getting started - it'd be much appreciated. Thank in Advance.
 

RangerX

Member
Those are more complex games where I will be surprised you can find tutorial specifically dedicated to it.
What you will need to do is to break down what are the systems what will be in your game and learn how to create it seperately. Once you learn about all those system you will put it together as your game.
Per example, take the newcomers that always want to make a traditional JRPG style game. They try to figure out the whole of it at once and hit a very hard wall. Its because they could learn each parts seperately:

- Making a character move and interact with object like NPCs
- Making an inventory and a shop, currency
- Creating some turn based battle system
- Learning to make a real time cut scene
- Text box engine

and so on.
 
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CedSharp

Guest
In a city-builder like age of empire, you need, like @RangerX said, to focus on every part that composes the game.

First, you'll probably agree with me, you need to understand how to move a player ( or an unit ) with the mouse using point-and-click style.
Then, you probably will want to avoid obstacle so you'll enter the wonderful world of pathfinding (NOT). Once you can move around and avoid stuff
as you move from point A to point B, then you'll probably want to try moving multiple units at the same time. In age of empire, you can select
more than one unit and move them all in formation. That's another tricky part.

When you're confident with the moving, then creating the city-building part is a whole other different experience.
You need to be able to "place" a building, add a "build time", add "upgrades", etc.

If you attack each and every parts one by one, you'll be able to get over the huge mountain.
But if you look at the tip of the huge montain and start running toward it, surely you'll put your feet in a hole that was right in front
of you which was quite obvious.

I suggest that you take small steps, and making sure you have a solid footing before taking another step.
Slowly but surely, you'll eventually reach the top of the montain.

Regards,
CedSharp
 

YanBG

Member
I've seen some GM RTS games, like this one:


But they keep their source code. If you've spent a good amount of time learning GML on your last game you could reuse much of it, like the Menus and Interface(with mouse coordinates not objects).
 
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Richard Woodard

Guest
Thanks guys.. I realize this is going to be a huge undertaking. Unfortunately, most of the resources from my other endeavors just do not translate into this genre; Double Dragon style beat'em ups - which, in that area of GM I feel like I have a really strong understanding. This stuff helps, and I love that video YanBG; harkens back to the days of WarCraft lol.
 

YanBG

Member
If you are going to add fog of war and exploration(marco and polo from aoe2 :D), there are short tutorials for that bits:



I've used them too, they work with surfaces and are bit heavy on the performance but it can be optimized. There are written tutorials too, just google them.

You might have to search like this for every other mechanic piece by piece.
 
Age of Empires you say ? It's not that hard as people say, tho I don't know your skills so it maybe hard for you. You will also need to do some optimization too.

First thing first you will need to make the terrain (using tiles will be your best bet). If I were you I would chunk the map. Use async functions for saving loading the chunks using buffers. Use the top-down to isometric formula so all your logic and pathfinding is done top-down (which is easier than doing it all isometric). You will find some challenges along the way (like arrows and formations for example) but that's nothing too hard.
Truly the hardest part for a solo programmer is the art. Yeah, everyone can make some buildings in blender or something. But humanoids and rigging and animation are hard (hard for mediocre results).

I did something a while back (last year). It's a city builder called VirtuCity, it's now buried in the old forums. But it's definitely doable. When I look at this video I want to go back and finish it, but I know, that my game can't rival Cities Skyline and that's when I gave up (Ironically, the original creator of VirtuCity also gave up because of the same reason just a different game I think). The terrain tho is one of a kind in game maker and I'm proud of that :D
 

YanBG

Member
@KayleMaster You should finish it!

The OP can use stock animations that are free. Now if he wants to sell it, that's different than just making it(one of the reasons i make my own graphics). On Steam it could have some sales and it would still be great for his bio(to get hired), because many people buy games without having time to actually play them but the average customer can physically go through couple AAA a month and that's it.
 
No hate towards GM:S but until they introduce proper multi threading (right now it's very limited) and sprite batching I won't go back. Right now I'm using Love2D but their forum is so boring I'd much rather hang out here.
 
No, actually it ran fine. I couldn't implement a proper chunk system and whenever I moved my screen (and thus, generating new chunks) the game would stop for a second (fps drop). I think It was because all of the tile_add calls but I'm not sure. Also traffic. I had absolutely no idea how that would work and just gave up :/
Oh and I didn't have YYC ( I still don't)
 
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Mylon

Guest
Also traffic. I had absolutely no idea how that would work and just gave up :/
Haha, no one knows how to simulate traffic. Sim City 4 just had cars randomly spawn and disappear. Not sure how the most recent Sim City handled it but it wasn't good.

So long as you can make the management aspect fun, people will forgive you if the visual simulation does stupid stuff like spawn cars and then despawn them in plain view.
 

RangerX

Member
In the latest city builders like SimCity 5 and Cities Skylines, the traffic are real NPCs with pathfinding. Its alot of CPU work and parameters. I would be lazy to attempt it in GameMaker while perfectly doable.
 
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Mylon

Guest
Drawing individual cars from start to finish isn't that big of a problem. But doing so on a scale and proportion to represent traffic is where it gets tricky.
 
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