H
Heimerdinger
Guest
Hi, it's my first thread in the forum, let me tell you my suggestions and first expressions about Game Maker Studio. First of all, it's very good tool that allows you to make a game pretty fast, especially when you are using an internal programming language. In two days I managed to make a brick-breaker, I used tutorials at first but after 3 or 4 parts of YT videos I started to continue making it on my own, I created power-ups and flying enemies with ease, used someone's code to make bricks break apart procedurally (I needed to change it a little to fits my needs and remove texture paging bug in a free version when it can't be disabled). I've been also having good time creating content to it, graphics, mixing sound e.t.c.
But after about ~10 hours of having fun I started to notice that Game Maker is indeed a great tool, but lacks some basic features and can be so much more.
First of all- room editor. I was really surprised that it has undo level with a power of...1, no layers support, it's not able to rotate objects, there is no such an options like move to the center, move to the bottom e.t.c. It could be good if we can use some kind of brush as well, and also tile editor is very limited. This makes me think twice if I want to start bigger project with those limitations.
Another thing that is very limited- for a capabilities of GML- drag & drop events and "graphical programming". It looks like through those 6+ years nothing changed- lacks of actions (that can be done with coding though) and limited features, I'd like to see possibility to "turn off" part of the actions to disable them temporary, action blocks could be more readable, also grouping/commenting them would be nice. When choosing x and y position, room preview with coordinates picker would be useful, when addressing to other variables there could be a Content Assist that includes build-in and custom variables/functions, so I don't need to close the action window, open other's object actions and see how I named certain variable.
In script editor I missed color picker and more content assist/auto-completion pop ups. Coding is pretty good but not all of programmers would like that you can't write function inside script, also structure or objects could be very useful when making greater projects.
There are other little things like setting up starting animation speed, transition between room, missing grouping objects into assets e.t.c., but after all Game Maker Studio is powerful tool, making game with it is fun, I focused on disadvantages of Game Maker but don't get me wrong- it has many good sides, including mostly needed features like more stability over GM8 and Professional Edition features. Just wanted to say Game Maker: Studio is in a good way to win over their competitors, just need - in my opinion- a little more love to be something much more!
But after about ~10 hours of having fun I started to notice that Game Maker is indeed a great tool, but lacks some basic features and can be so much more.
First of all- room editor. I was really surprised that it has undo level with a power of...1, no layers support, it's not able to rotate objects, there is no such an options like move to the center, move to the bottom e.t.c. It could be good if we can use some kind of brush as well, and also tile editor is very limited. This makes me think twice if I want to start bigger project with those limitations.
Another thing that is very limited- for a capabilities of GML- drag & drop events and "graphical programming". It looks like through those 6+ years nothing changed- lacks of actions (that can be done with coding though) and limited features, I'd like to see possibility to "turn off" part of the actions to disable them temporary, action blocks could be more readable, also grouping/commenting them would be nice. When choosing x and y position, room preview with coordinates picker would be useful, when addressing to other variables there could be a Content Assist that includes build-in and custom variables/functions, so I don't need to close the action window, open other's object actions and see how I named certain variable.
In script editor I missed color picker and more content assist/auto-completion pop ups. Coding is pretty good but not all of programmers would like that you can't write function inside script, also structure or objects could be very useful when making greater projects.
There are other little things like setting up starting animation speed, transition between room, missing grouping objects into assets e.t.c., but after all Game Maker Studio is powerful tool, making game with it is fun, I focused on disadvantages of Game Maker but don't get me wrong- it has many good sides, including mostly needed features like more stability over GM8 and Professional Edition features. Just wanted to say Game Maker: Studio is in a good way to win over their competitors, just need - in my opinion- a little more love to be something much more!