Game Maker

At first, YoYo Game Maker looks very amateur. And that’s probably because it is. Game Make was created as a way of providing a professional service to an amateur demographic, and therefore extend the scope of game developers and games created. On a very basic level, Game Maker uses a drag-and-drop interface so that no coding is required. The interface is arranged so that all the resources you are using appear on the left hand side of the screen, while the rest of the screen contains windows configuring these elements.

I have used code in this example, but the drag-and-drop options are clearly visible on the right hand side of the window. All options are categorised- these actions symbolise movement options for the character displayed. You may also notice that I’m currently using the lite version, which is completely free to download by anyone. There are few limitations when using this free version, but I will probably buy the standard edition at some point during this project.

For advanced users, there is the option to code the game yourself, which opens up nearly unlimited opportunities to create something to a professional standard. The software uses a built-in programming language called Game Make Language (GML), which is similar to C-based languages and presents nearly 1000 functions and variables at the disposal of the creator. Even if you are relatively new to coding like me, the code is still easy to because of the user-friendly interface.

This is a code I used to whilst I was trying to learn the language (comments are written in //green). It’s a basic code which used for character movement, which makes the character move left or right depending on the keys pressed. It also changes the sprite in accordance with whether the character is moving or stationary, and whether the character is facing left or right.

I have chosen to use Game Maker because of its simplicity and ease of use for beginners. Game Maker has a huge community of users dedicated to providing resources and creating help for new users, as well as sharing games. On the YoYo games Sandbox site, users can upload their creations and play games made by others, as well as access tutorials and tools to help with game creation. There are also many other publishing options for developers, including the chance to port to iOS, android and even PSP. You may not realise it, but many Game Maker creations have gone to be successful hits, especially on iTunes. Some popular games at the moment include They Need To Be Fed, Mr Karoshi and Maddening, which proves the diversity you can potentially create with the program.

Features of the Lite edition of Game Maker:
Drag & drop interface
Backgrounds, sprites & images
Animated graphics
Rotate sprites
Internal image editor
Font control
Sound effects & music
Paths and timelines
Internal code editor – with user-definable syntax colouring
GameMaker Language (GML) – highly flexible scripting language
Packaged with images and sounds – freeware samples
Auto-updater – for updates and bug fixes
Create executables
GameMaker watermark on executables

Additional Features of the Standard edition:
Modify resources at run-time – sprites, backgrounds, paths etc.
Particle effects
3D graphics
Full-screen anti-aliasing
3D hardware acceleration
Off-screen surfaces – for rendering dynamic textures
Interstitial screens – loading screens, videos
Advanced text drawing – rotation etc.
Audio processing effects – reverb, delay etc.
3D sound
Built-in data structures – stacks, lists, dictionaries, queues etc.
Extensions – using custom external DLLs
No Watermark on Excetuables

The Search For Game Creation Software

The list of freeware game creation software is an extensive one, and I will admit that I didn’t look into everything before deciding on the program I would use. Ambrosine’s resource list came in very handy when I started to look for possible options, providing a huge list of engines each with a brief description of the type of games you can create. This helped rule out many irrelevant programs, such as 3D based software. I also ruled out a couple of programs based on the quality of the website, the look of the interface or the overall look of the example games shown. I think these were fair judgements to pass, as first impressions are often the most important.

I briefly looked into Flash libraries such as Flixel, which now has an ever-increasing list of successful games to its name, including web-based and iOS games. Having never used action script, this didn’t look appealing to me even though the games looked to be a high standard.
My focus was really on choosing an engine which was perfect for absolute beginners, but which would provide an excellent service and produce high quality games. A few Google searches, Game Maker really caught my attention. It especially kept cropping up on sites like answers.yahoo where people in a similar situation had asked for the best software for beginners. Game Maker was often the first and most popular answer to spring up.
Other sites providing lists of great resources included entries like this:
Make Use Of Us.com
I think Game Maker will be a really great place for me to start, and progress from. Game Maker seems to be doing well on the web and Apple App store, but commercially I don’t think it has much potential to expand from there. For me, this project will revolve around learning the processes of making a game; the hardships and decision making involved. For this, a non-complication engine will help get the basics down and out of the way so later I can move on to more complex creation procedures!

Some Rejected Software:
Sploder
Adventure Make
Game Editor
Game Studio

Synopsis of Study–What I’m Doing & Why I’m Doing It

Time to start actually making something! The Specialist Project requires a learning agreement as part of the assessment requirements, and after a tutorial this morning I’ve spent the afternoon drafting up a rough version. This probably won’t be finalised until tomorrow, so until then here’s a rough guide of my synopsis of study, “what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.”

The “game” I will create will be a 2D game based around a circular playing field. Mainly in the interest of time, this game will only consist of one level and won’t take long to play from start to finish- probably somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes. The player will begin at the top of the circle and gradually make their way around the circle, adhering to the gravity of the level, until they eventually find themselves back where they started. This will set the game apart from standard linear 2D games and make the whole thing a little more interesting. I’m not entirely sure how I will achieve this, but I know that the Super Mario Galaxy style circular gravity is possible to code in Game Maker. The question is, will the camera follow the character around the world or simply suggest that the world is round?

Super Mario Galaxy for Wii is a great example of a game which plays around with gravity physics. Set in space, Super Mario Galaxy involves Mario happing between small planets and objects, each with their own gravitational field. The player can jump on one planet and find themselves sucked in by the gravitational pull of another. Obviously, this example is in 3D, but Indie developers have really taken this idea on in 2D games such as And Yet It Moves (PC), VVVVVV (PC), Hoggy (iOS) and They Need To Be Fed (iOS & Android) (and so many more…)

In my game, the player will not need to jump between different platforms with different gravitational directions. I simply need to concentrate on creating one centre of gravity, which pulls into a point rather than a direction. The example if a Game Maker creation shows that you can set a gravitational point for circular and linear platforms on a 2D scale.

The game will begin at the very top of the circular world. After a brief introduction, the player will be given the task to traverse the world gaining the experiences that the world has to offer. These ideas are still in production, but I know that overall, the game cannot be concluded until the player has collected/viewed/addressed these various “experiences.” For simplicity, these will probably reveal themselves in a straight line, so the player must continually walk forwards through the world until they have complete a full circle and end up back at the beginning of the level. By playing my game, I hope the user will enjoy the visuals I create and feel some emotional response in accordance to the interactions of this circular world without the need for competitive elements or an obvious reward.

So, some questions that still need answering are:
What inhabits this circular world?
What will the player experience through exploration of this world?
How will the conclusion be worthy of the gameplay?

The Art Emotion Game Movement

Modern indie game development has seen the emergence of the so-called “art” genre of gaming, aimed to be received by a large mixed audience with little gaming experience. Playing the game should be similar to visiting an art gallery, where you control the art you see and enjoy the experience of looking (and in most cases listening.)
The genre was recently been popularised by indie developers That Game Company when they released Flower for PSN in 2009. The company, founded by Kellee Santiago and Jenova Chen when they were still students, made a name for themselves when they created Cloud for PC in 2005. Santiago states:

We wanted to change the game industry and make these new emotional games to appeal to new audiences.

The company went on to create FlOw using Flash, and later ported this to PSN as a relatively unknown indie development company. Flower was created specifically for PSN, exploiting the system’s sixaxis controller as a means of reaching out to non-gamers who were unfamiliar with the Playstation game pads. Like seeing a painting for the first time, Flower doesn’t give the player much context. You take control of a single flower petal, which manoeuvres through the world on the wind, gradually gathering petals from other flowers in order to de-urbanise a decaying landscape. Objectives are achieved by simply fluttering around in a fun way, and executing commands hardly feel like playing at all. The game won multiple awards for achievements in art and for its beautiful soundtrack, and broke records when it stayed in the PSN’s top 20 downloaded list for 2 years.
Flower’s success has opened audiences up to similar games, based around art and emotions. A “game” no longer needs to be a case of skill + perseverance = reward, but can be a relaxing and emotional experience to delve into.

Both pastoral and at times chaotic, Flower is a visual, audio and interactive escape on PS3.

Praise/Reviews for Flower:
IGN
Gamespot
Kotaku
That Game Company

Input Output Cinema

Awkward Silence Games

Black and white. Check.
Obscure plot. Check.
Depressing tone. Check.
Little to no game play. Check.

Pretentious “art” game it is then.

This small collection of games was created by a student of multimedia who calls himself Beans. The quote above is his own description of his most recent game The Body. He goes on to say that it isn’t really a game at all, and that it isn’t even fun. However, The Body like all of his creations is a thought-provoking and interesting experience, which fits extremely well into the Input Output cinema genre. I wrote a summary of each game on my old Blog here.

Rock Paper Shotgun Interview for One Chance

Ruins by Cardboard Computer

This example is different to most of the others I have found, simply because it has brought the genre very successfully to 3D. Like a lot of art games, there is a lot of emphasis on the blurry, dreamlike visuals in this game. There is also no real game-play. The game is concluded when enough of the complex back-story has been resolved by talking. You can read my summary of the game on my old Blog here.

PC Gamer best indie games review for Ruins

Devlog Video

In this video showing footage from upcoming indie game The Archer, creator Garbiel Verdon brilliantly demonstrates how to visually display progress through his devlog videos.

Praise/More info:
Indie Game The Weblog

Conflicting Advice: Game Design Log

There seems to be very conflicting information on the internet over the very first steps of game development. It seems that traditionally, you would begin with a GDD (game design document), which is a written document explaining everything about the game from the characters to the back-story. From here you would proceed with a more technical document before starting to draw up visual concepts. This idea seems to be moving forward with the times, where it seems to be increasingly easier to get straight to a computer and just go. This first became apparent after I read the Less Talk More Rock manifesto on Boing Boing, which for the first time suggests that if you a great idea you should just get on with things. If an idea is takes too much time to refine, then the idea probably wasn’t a very good one in the first place…

I then found a guideline from Danc, former employee of Epic Megagames (now known as Epic), explaining his design process.
Instead of settling on a set idea from the very beginning, Danc allows his ideas to develop progressively using a Game Design Log which continues throughout production. He explains that this is an inevitable part of creating a game, as ideas evolve along the way. Here is some of the advice he gives for writing up a continuing design log:

1. Start with a concept
This is like a rough, watered down version of the traditional GDD. There should be just enough information here to being development.
2. Build a prototype
Instead of creating a beautiful game from start to finish, initial emphasis should be one creating something that works technically, even if this means using very basic graphics to begin with and adding the final images later. Having something that is fully playable is more useful for gaining feedback.
3. Add a daily entry
This is where the Design log differs to the GDD. Using feedback from the gameplay, not concentrating on visual or audio elements, the design log can be used to build the remaining elements of the game. The next steps in development should be prioritised here, so you always know where development is headed.
4. Repeat
This is an ongoing process. Feedback gains results, which leads to development, which then needs more feedback. And the process repeats. This is all documented in the log.

Danc gives this conversation style example as one method of laying out the GDL.

Creative Advice: The Design Document

One of the first things you need is a game design document.
The game design document, or GDD, is a collection of information that describes every aspect of the game from a design perspective. It describes how the menus will react to user input, the backstory behind the main character, the art, and what experiences the player should have while playing the game.

In theory, a person with your GDD should be able to make your game without ever needing you to discuss it and clarify. It should be a perfect and complete guide to realizing your idea as a finished game.

The GDD serves multiple important purposes. It helps you to explain your ideas to other people so that they can join you in realizing them, and it allows the development team to share a common conception of the project on which they are working.

Source: Making A Video Game From Start To Finish: An Overview For Beginners on Game Career Guide

The Creative Process

From A Special Feature: Less Talk More Rock Manifesto on Boing Boing. I refer to this article a lot for inspiration and a little insight into the workings of a creative mind.



A project starts with an idea, a vision, something that is hard to define, something kind of magic and amazing. This is step 1. This is gold. This is beautiful. You can’t yet see the details, but you have a sense for thing you want to make, and hopefully you’re swept away by it.



Usually in the creative process, the next step — step 2 — is to think about the project intellectually, to talk about it, to look at it from various angles, to plan it out, maybe to second guess it or to problem solve it, maybe reconsider it a bit. This is the talk.



The next step, step 3, is to actually make this thing, to get down to it. This is the rock. And we like to think that the process goes from 1 to 2 to 3.
And maybe that’s where it ends. Maybe you get lost in all that talk — all that intellectualizing, all that ‘what if?’, all those numbers and sales projections or what-have-you, all that self-doubt — and you lose your way. Maybe you never even get to step three. Or maybe whatever survives has none of the inspiration of step 1: it has been diluted, compromised, transformed.

That’s why Jordan Mechner’s advice — and it’s so beautiful — is to proceed from 1 to 3 to 2. Go right from the inspiration — the vision — to actually making it. Don’t think it through. Don’t talk about it. Don’t plan it. Dive in and start making it happen. If you do that — if you can start rocking — you’ll get some momentum, and when you have some momentum then the project has a chance, because now you’re into it. It’s going somewhere, it’s tangible. Sure, you’ll still run up against problems to solve and decisions to make, but you’ll approach these in the moment and solve them in the moment. You’ll solve them so you can keep moving.

Superbrothers Dot Matrix Revolution

From Vimeo:

Following an early morning status check of their vintage electronic equipment, two computer engineers “throw down” in an awkward dance-off that innacurately echoes the development of information technolgy and the internet from 1951 up to the present day. The film features a catchy jingle by pop impresario Jim Guthrie.

This is one of my favourite Superbrothers animations. One of Adams’ greatest abilities seems to be to say a lot without saying much at all.