Feedback GMS2 Observations

[Jasconius]

System info:

Windows 10
Single monitor, 1080p
8GB RAM
2011-era Intel Core i5
GeForce GTX970

Some perspective... not really a GameMaker veteran. C++/ObjC dev who is tired of programming My test case here is taking a medium sized C++ codebase for a 2D diablo-esque game and trying to re-implement it as much as possible using GM2 w/ drag and drop

Will have more but I thought I would just drop these off based on my first night with the software

Observations in no particular order...

• Performance degradation in a small project when scrolling up and down drag-n-drop components list in the script editor, while mousing over the various icons to see what the names were. 200-500ms window freezes on scroll and mouse over events. Eventually recovered without restart.
• Would like more visual feedback w/ special drag and drop components like IF, knowing that the "if true" actions go to the right... obviously knowable via trial and error... but not immediately intuitive
• Really painful scrolling issues in the workspace panel when dealing with events & scripts on a 1080p monitor. Couldn't locate a horizontal scroll bar for that workspace, or a drag tool anywhere, so I had to hack by just constantly double clicking whatever I wanted to refocus the workspace back on that. Yucky
• Having declared variables show up in the code helper would be neat... like any variable declared in the instance create event should be a candidate for auto complete
• An import menu for assets would be nice. Maybe I'm just missing it. Seems like you have to drag and drop things from Explorer to do it...
• During test app runs, I would get "system working" mouse cursors at various times which seemed odd. Maybe just a consequence of being in debug mode.
• I tried to create a tileset with only 1 tile that was based off of a simple sprite.. and when I took that into the room editor the tileset would always have a piece or all of that tile be transparent instead of the image. It's very possible that I did something wrong, but my point here is that the software gave me no indication of what it thought the problem was, or even that there was a problem. Only point so far I've felt truly lost.

Positive thoughts.. LOVE the drag and drop editor so far. Major improvement on GM1 in my opinion. Much clearer in how to go about creating robust behaviors without creating a maintenance nightmare. Room editor also seems pretty good but still learning.

I'm pretty excited about this tool, count me as a customer.

 

[Nocturne]

• Would like more visual feedback w/ special drag and drop components like IF, knowing that the "if true" actions go to the right... obviously knowable via trial and error... but not immediately intuitive

Every page of the manual that has an action that goes to the right has an image and text to explain that this is the behaviour... You did read the manual, right?

• Really painful scrolling issues in the workspace panel when dealing with events & scripts on a 1080p monitor. Couldn't locate a horizontal scroll bar for that workspace, or a drag tool anywhere, so I had to hack by just constantly double clicking whatever I wanted to refocus the workspace back on that. Yucky

Okay, you can middle click anywhere in the workspace to drag it around, and you can use Control + Tab to open the goto tool and VERY quickly skip to any open window (not to mention Control and mouse wheel to zoom in out). This is in the manual too and also explained in the IDE Basics: Workspaces tutorial.

• Having declared variables show up in the code helper would be neat... like any variable declared in the instance create event should be a candidate for auto complete

They should show up. Is it possible you've switched it off in the preferences or something? The different scoped variables should show up in autocomplete and be colour coded too...

• I tried to create a tileset with only 1 tile that was based off of a simple sprite.. and when I took that into the room editor the tileset would always have a piece or all of that tile be transparent instead of the image. It's very possible that I did something wrong, but my point here is that the software gave me no indication of what it thought the problem was, or even that there was a problem. Only point so far I've felt truly lost.

The 0 index tile is the empty/erase tile. This is explained in the manual and also covered in the IDE Basics: Tilesets tutorial.

I'm beginning to see a pattern here...

 

[Jasconius]

yeah right, but you don't need a manual for Visual Studio, Xcode, Unity, or most Adobe Products to get basic things done like, say, scroll a window. Some of this stuff doesn't need to be an RTFM situation.

You mistake my comments as me looking for answers. I'm telling you things other people are going to notice too. If that's how you want to handle them that's your business.

Sorry I bothered you with the feedback that was implicitely requested by publishing the beta

 

[Nocturne]

No need for the attitude! I was only pointing out that no software can be dominated without at some point looking at the documentation. I understand that these are your first impressions, and I was only trying to to point out that documentation is supplied for a reason. And sorry, but "you don't need a manual for Xcode etc..." is a bit of a silly comment... if that's the case why do Apple spend millions on generating massive amounts of documentation and support videos? Or why do Adobe bother with their 748 page help file? Better tell Unity that their online manual is pointless too. They could instead spend the money on adding more features and just forget about documenting them because they're going to be so obvious to everybody that nobody will have any problem nor require written documentation to tell them how they work.

Seriously, the docs are written to be read, and no matter how good your UI someone will not get all of it and that's why it's important to have these written resources, and what they are designed for. Now I'm not saying that the UI is perfect, or that GMS doesn't have it's issues or can't be improved. You are RIGHT that it is in Beta for a reason, and we appreciate your feedback, but that doesn't mean that pointing you to the manual is not a valid response to some of the issues you raise. GMS does break a few paradigms and maybe that's not a good thing, but maybe if you got used to the new way or the different way you'd find that it's actually better. It could be worse too, but at least with the documentation you get to test the new ways properly and make an informed criticism.

 

[NPT]

yeah right, but you don't need a manual for Visual Studio, Xcode, Unity, or most Adobe Products to get basic things done like, say, scroll a window. Some of this stuff doesn't need to be an RTFM situation.

You mistake my comments as me looking for answers. I'm telling you things other people are going to notice too. If that's how you want to handle them that's your business.

Sorry I bothered you with the feedback that was implicitely requested by publishing the beta

So you were able to effectively use VS, Xcode, Unity etc without effort, tutorials or docs, but need help with GMS2 UI. You're either making crap up or set a new notch in Savant Syndrom Spectrum