Newbie Question...What kind of games can I make?

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Patches

Guest
I've been flitting around the internet and youtube and googling the question but not getting anywhere so here goes...

What kind of games can I make with Game Maker?

1. Hidden Object with an item list where the word is either scratched through or the item disappears once it is found?

2. Claw games like Gold Miner?

3. Builder games like
Build-A-Lot
Big Bang West
Rush for Gold Alaska (click on the item and the character goes and performs an action on it and then returns to base)
Rescue Team

4. I know that the After Dark Games were supposed to be 3D, but if the artwork/animation can be done in 2D, can something similar still be created in Game Maker?
Toaster Run
Mowin' Maniac
Roof Rats
Hoola Girl​

I also saw in my travels, that there was a game size limit??? It might have referred to an older version or the free version, but I was curious if there was a limit.

And not trying to offend anyone, but can you create games that don't look so pixelated/jaggy-edged? Or is that done on purpose?

I know that you can't changed the splash screen in the free version, but can you add another screen with your title and everything on it afterwards? Like your menu, choose name, options (volume, mouse, full screen)

Last, but not least, What is your best recommendation on BOOKS relating to using Game Maker or the scripting used in it?
 
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Nexusrex

Guest
I agree with roy, you can make any genre in GMS (Excluding high-quality 3D games). About the splash screen..Of course you can make options screen or a menu or anything else. Also, there are some non-pixelated/non-pixel art games made with GMS like Iron Snout and others. Depends on the target of the dev.
 
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Patches

Guest
Cool! Thank you!

All I keep seeing on these software pages and other software sites, seems to be the shooter and Mario type games and I understand those are beginner type games that teach basic functions of the editors and stuff. However, I didn't know if that's the kind of games it was limited to.

And last time I checked, I hadn't won the lottery so I can't afford the more expensive game engines/editors out there on the market and hubby already said no :(.

Okay, so how much is drag and drop and how much is actually having to know coding? And, does Game Maker use several different programming and scripting languages or just the GML? Do I need to know HTML, CSS, Javascript, C#, Pearl and all of that stuff to get a decent game?
 
P

Patches

Guest
I agree with roy, you can make any genre in GMS (Excluding high-quality 3D games). About the splash screen..Of course you can make options screen or a menu or anything else. Also, there are some non-pixelated/non-pixel art games made with GMS like Iron Snout and others. Depends on the target of the dev.

Thank you!

With the graphics, what file types can I import for my character and asset images?

And one last thing. If I start off with the free version, when I get paid, and buy the Studio Professional do I need to re-install it or does it just unlock added features?
 

FrostyCat

Redemption Seeker
Create a new sprite, click the load button, then look through the dropdown for file formats.

The last time I checked, I saw BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, SWF and Spine.
 
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Nexusrex

Guest
Well, i don't recommend to use Drag and Drop..As it's not that useful to make good games. Also, in game-dev you only use GML (As far i know)

With the graphics, i agree with FrostyCat.
 
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Wraithious

Guest
You can make any kinds of games with game maker, and even apps that aren't games as well. As far as size limits, it's more on how good a computer you have, i had a game that was well over 300 megabytes and it would take awhile to build the game, especially when first firing up gamemaker and compiling, but after the first compile subsequent compiles are much quicker. Things like having alot of sounds and or huge backgrounds affect this, you may want to set up the sounds as small files to get them working then when you're ready to build the finished game put the large sound files in then, it'll save you time.
 
P

Patches

Guest
Create a new sprite, click the load button, then look through the dropdown for file formats.

The last time I checked, I saw BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, SWF and Spine.
What is Spine? Never heard of it! SWF sounds familiar but not sure which program it's associated with.
 
P

Patches

Guest
Well, i don't recommend to use Drag and Drop..As it's not that useful to make good games. Also, in game-dev you only use GML (As far i know)

With the graphics, i agree with FrostyCat.
Oh, good! I was sort of worried about that!

When I was 20 years younger, I could do the HTML and some Javascript but I haven't messed around with anything like that in a long time and I'm not sure I could get my noggin' to retain too many different languages right now.
 
P

Patches

Guest
You can make any kinds of games with game maker, and even apps that aren't games as well. As far as size limits, it's more on how good a computer you have, i had a game that was well over 300 megabytes and it would take awhile to build the game, especially when first firing up gamemaker and compiling, but after the first compile subsequent compiles are much quicker. Things like having alot of sounds and or huge backgrounds affect this, you may want to set up the sounds as small files to get them working then when you're ready to build the finished game put the large sound files in then, it'll save you time.
Thank you! That helps!

And how do you get some of the background music used in these games? I know there are places that you can get decent sounds like cash register, ding, coins, etc. But I have no idea where you would get background music.
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
What is Spine? Never heard of it! SWF sounds familiar but not sure which program it's associated with.
A skeleton animation program (using a proprietary format AFAIK). For an example of skeletal animation, check out The Darkest Dungeon. Skeletal animation is about breaking down an image into small parts that can be moved around and rotated to create a large number of different poses, as well as transition between them smoothly. SWF format is a vector image format, e.g. the image consists of arbitrary-size arbitrary-placement polygons instead of pixels; they can be zoomed or rotated freely without loss of fidelity but take more time to draw since each polygon needs to be drawn separatedly; rasterized images only ever need two polys no matter their size.
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
Thank you! That helps!

And how do you get some of the background music used in these games? I know there are places that you can get decent sounds like cash register, ding, coins, etc. But I have no idea where you would get background music.
It very much depends on what you're aiming for. VG Music Archive has a lot of MIDI files from existing games, those can be useful for making games you're just using to learn from (or in fan games) but they obviously can't be used in commercial games. There's a site called the MOD Archive that has nice chiptunes, and which can be browsed by license. OpenGameArt.org also has a section for music, but it can be pretty hard to find GOOD resources there, no matter what kind you're looking for, since the barrier of entry is very low and it has limited curation. And then there's Kevin McLeod (his site is called Incompetech) who has a HUGE music collection; a lot of people use it in their games. It might make your games seem bland and stock since a lot of people would recognize the music you used, but I'd personally err on the side of having a nice product with the best resources I could find.
 

Freddy Jones

Your Main Detective
To be completely specific, not including its support for native extensions, Studio itself does have limitations on what it can do.
 
P

Patches

Guest
A skeleton animation program (using a proprietary format AFAIK). For an example of skeletal animation, check out The Darkest Dungeon. Skeletal animation is about breaking down an image into small parts that can be moved around and rotated to create a large number of different poses, as well as transition between them smoothly. SWF format is a vector image format, e.g. the image consists of arbitrary-size arbitrary-placement polygons instead of pixels; they can be zoomed or rotated freely without loss of fidelity but take more time to draw since each polygon needs to be drawn separatedly; rasterized images only ever need two polys no matter their size.
Wow, that's deep, LOL!

That Skeleton Animation, is that the same thing that's done in Blender? IF so, I just downloaded that the other day and it's going to have a steep learning curve.

I've got vector image software.

Well, I reckon most of my questions have been answered.

I'll see what I end up with on animation creation...still too early for me to have figured it out yet.

There's a cool guy on here Eric, as long as you give him credit for his work you can use his creations, he has tons of stuff to choose from, here's a link to his website:
http://soundimage.org/
OH WOW! Those are awesome! Will definitely be using some of those! Especially, Mr. Sneaky Pants! LOL!

To be completely specific, not including its support for native extensions, Studio itself does have limitations on what it can do.
Thank you Freddy!

That was nice and succinct!

Would you care to elaborate on the limitations?

It very much depends on what you're aiming for. VG Music Archive has a lot of MIDI files from existing games, those can be useful for making games you're just using to learn from (or in fan games) but they obviously can't be used in commercial games. There's a site called the MOD Archive that has nice chiptunes, and which can be browsed by license. OpenGameArt.org also has a section for music, but it can be pretty hard to find GOOD resources there, no matter what kind you're looking for, since the barrier of entry is very low and it has limited curation. And then there's Kevin McLeod (his site is called Incompetech) who has a HUGE music collection; a lot of people use it in their games. It might make your games seem bland and stock since a lot of people would recognize the music you used, but I'd personally err on the side of having a nice product with the best resources I could find.

Thank you for all of the ideas/resources.

It's pretty strange, but most of the time when I play games, I mute the background music or turn it down low and I leave the sound for the actions on. I'm sensitive to noise. However, I do like hearing the music when the game is first loaded to get the atmosphere of the game.

I'm not sure how much other game players actually feel the need for music. Some of it can be pretty irritating after you've played for over an hour.

But I figure on at least giving them the option and making sure I don't try to raise the dead with the initial volume.

Moderator edit: four back-to-back posts. Please edit your last post to add more info, unless someone else has posted in the meantime.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
A

Aura

Guest
Welcome to the GMC!

First of all, please do not create multiple posts in a row. If you want to add information, edit your last post to do that. Or use the Quote option to quote multiple people at a time. ^^

As for your questions:

  • GameMaker can be used to create games of all genres. You can create high quality 3D games too, but that would only take some (a lot of...) effort.
  • You can find out everything about Spine here -- that would be a faster and more reliable source to obtain information from.
  • D&D has been there for people who have just appeared in the programming line, plus it's a fast way to program simple games. Mostly used by kids and novices these days. But you can still program games good enough with its help. On the contrary, GML provides you a more advanced functionality and an option to do almost everything.
  • You don't need to re-install your copy of GM:S when upgrading to the Professional version.
 
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Misty

Guest
I agree with roy, you can make any genre in GMS (Excluding high-quality 3D games). .
I can make high quality 3D games with Game Maker, so speak for yourself.

Youre telling me Hovertank 3D isn't high quality? It was King of the Cage Match.

Also the sound effect in the actual game sounds better, the guy who uploaded the video messed up the sound.
 
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Nexusrex

Guest
@Misty Oh excuse me ^^ I did actually mean something very complex like Dark Souls or GTA, you understand me..Also, i did say that because sometimes when you say that to beginners, they just go hype thinking that's easy. I guess i should edit that ^^
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
You can make any software in game maker, it's just not the best tool for all types of software. I wouldn't recommend using it for use in real-time or embedded systems because you can't control thread priority and the runner makes a pretty big footprint on the final game, but there's nothing really stopping you from it. GM's just a lot better at making games than anything else, since it has built-in pixelart editors and stuff like that.

The most famous game made in Game Maker at the moment is Undertale, which everyone should be at least as acquainted to as FNAF at this moment, and on the subject of making GTA in GM, there's a guy that's made several GTA clones called the Crimelife series.
 
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