GMplanet aggregator

GameMaker Blog: First video of Game Maker for PSP

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 04:10:19 -0500

Below is a video demonstrating Game Maker for PSP running a none-modified version of Chad Chisholm’s Skydiver.

There game is in a playable state but there are some problems with speed, a few graphical glitches and background music has not yet been implemented.

GameMaker Blog: YoYo Hire CTO, Downtime Explanation, YYG Announcement Expected Tomorrow

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:03:58 -0500

YoYo Games have hired a Chief Technical Officer in Dundee and will be making an announcement “indirectly” related to Game Maker for PSP tomorrow.

Yesterday’s downtime which affected all YoYo Games services including the Game Maker Community was caused by “simple maintenance” which went wrong following a firewall conflict. Around 30 minutes of downtime was followed by a period where games on the main YoYo Games were without screenshots.

Photo credit: Dundee by Flickr user macieklew, released under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

GameMakerGames News: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT PLEASE READ

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:16:06 -0500

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7GZLRxVzvg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxvGHQHiY70&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rvPX8UlQ78

GameMaker Blog: “Linked” Online Game Maker Highscores

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:30:40 -0500

A new online highscores system for Game Maker has been launched.

Linked which is part of the UpUrLoad file hosting website utilises 39dll to make it easy to maintain a global highscores table.

Created tables can be viewed directly within your game (there is no need to launch a browser window when sending or retrieving scores). Scores are sent as encrypted md5 strings which include a secret key visible only in the creator’s Linked account. There are versions available for Game Maker 6-8.

This is probably the easiest to use online highscore solution for Game Maker games that I have seen.

GameMaker Blog: The Issues behind “Community Game Projects”

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:49:17 -0500

Across several Game Maker forums we have seen the creation of ”Community Game” projects. The most widely-participated in of these by far has been the “GMCG“, started by grimmjow. Other smaller-scale projects include NOD’s still unnamed Game Project, NODs first game project which died and 64 Digits’ (now dead) game.

Although the idea is plausible and there are always lots of volunteers in the beginning the initial thrill wears off in just a few short weeks. If a strong group is not built up by then the projects slowly deteriorate until it is just a small group of elite leaders that are talking to the wall. Here is a look at just a few of the many problems that plague these so called “Community Games”.

1. Lack of proper leadership
Although from the outside it just looks like the position with all the glory and the honor (and the mod powers!), the leadership position plays a very critical role in the overall out come of the game. Too often the leaders of these projects are relatively inexperienced in creating games, much less leading a group of lots of people. More experienced members who would have the knowledge and technical know-how to run such a project realize all the responsibility involved and generally tend to run in the opposite direction.

2. If you want it that way then why not you do it?
A problem I have encountered in many of the games out there is large groups making decisions, that are generally not their business. For example, why should the sprite makers and artists choose what program the sound and music crew must use to make music? It doesn’t really affect them. The musicians, who are hopefully experienced in their field should be able to make a decision themselves, independently from the rest of the community. Why should the people outside the music department get a say in something that does not affect them, but it will affect the musicians, and possibly make them leave.

3. Activity Levels
The activity and devotion of members in the project is easily one of the top deciding factors in the overall speed of the game. As with most projects (including community games) activity and enthusiasm is always exuberant in the beginning of the game. Unfortunately after the initial rush activity levels start to diminish. This is partially because people get bored with the game or perhaps just wanted to see how it is progressing without contributing. It could also be because at the beginning of the project, there is not a lot which can be done. Leadership roles are still being established and story lines are being written. The challenge is having something for everyone at all times that people can work on.

Another interesting angle that the GMCG is taking is to name a weekly “Top Contributer”. They are also thinking of awarding actual prizes to members as a way of saying thanks as well as an incentive to other members. However, we have yet to see a prize given out. I find this also very true with media groups that try to produce weekly or monthly projects. Viewers like the idea initially, but since they only want to tune in (or read it as the case may be) now and then, the people that run it get discouraged after and give up.

4. Group Decisions
Although some game projects just set up a monarchy and have one person call all the shots, that doesn’t really hold with the spirit of a community game. Alternatives include having a small group of “leaders” that make decisions for members, or having all-out community votes. Unfortunately community votes take lots of time and that can bore members that just want to work on the game. One of the alternatives to having votes or monarchs is to have community discussions or “meetings” if you will. The people that are working on the game will all go on a set chat room at a predetermined time and discuss the aspects of the game, as well as the pros and cons of new ideas. One of the downfalls though is that people are spread out over many timezones and have different schedules which makes it hard for everyone to get their fair say.

5. On-Lookers
As with many group events, there are always people that sit on the sideline and watch before they jump in and do it. While having “contributor of the week” and giving out cash (or other forms of) prizes are good, that is not always enough to get people to join in. Group leaders need to think of creative ways to get these people “off the bleachers” (or computer chairs in this case) and into the project.

Eo Community News : HyperDuck Music Studios, have just moved in.

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 15:18:23 -0500

Help me with my boxes would ya? This movin in business is tough!

Hi my name is Chris Geehan, and I am one half of HyperDuck Music Studios.

I was told to make a post to say that Dan (Byrne-McCullough) & I have joined the community. Dan does not chime in on the community as much, just because he doesn't enjoy forum trolling like I do, but he knows everything I know, and one other thing, which he won't tell me. Git.

We're a two man/boy/duck team of two! That's right, the grammar.. thing. And we are freelance audio contractors, or freelance soundtrack composers, or freelance sound effects designers! Essentially, we are freelance in most of our work to date, and we're quite flexible as well, in terms of what type of work we can do, and our yoga teacher is always calling us benders, so we must be flexible! Hm.

It is good to finally move in here and even better to be welcomed with such warmth by the community. So without further delay, I give you..

THESHAMLESSPLUG!

http://www.hyperduck.co.uk for all our latest official updates that we're publicly allowed to talk about (yay freedom)
http://hyperduck.blogspot.com for my own (Chris) random blabberings/bloggerings. Besides the Eo-Community Blogposts, which.. I just.. saw, yes.

Thanks again, nice to be here.
Chris & Dan.

@Ark: Yeah we did the iji soundtrack, like 2 years ago, was our first time recording. I think consistency was the musical direction Dan Remar asked us for, so we gave him that, even though some of the tunes were in 4/4 and others in 7/4. I don't think it was that similar to be honest :) We use Cubase Studio 5 as our home recording studio base. We use both acoustic and electronic instruments within our compositions, and our new material is much cleaner and more polished sounding than the over-compressed newbie sound we had on Iji. In saying that, we will release a remake of the Iji OST for those who enjoyed it, later this year, probably in the fall of 2010.

@Krit: Thank you for the love!

Poke us at our website if you have anymore questions.

Lost Garden: At GDC 2010

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 03:23:00 -0500

GDC has come once again. I'll be in San Francisco and would be happy to meet up with anyone. Just drop me an email at danc [at] lostgarden.com.

This year I'll be giving two talks, both during the prime napping hours of day.

The Convergence of Flash Games and Social Games
Wednesday (March 10, 2010) 1:45pm — 2:45pm

IGDA: Working to Death - Game Developers and the Future of Work-Life Balance
Thursday (March 11, 2010) 1:30pm — 2:30pm
With Erin Hoffman (IGDA Board Member, Quality of Life SIG cofounder, Moderator), Hank Howie (President, Blue Fang Games)

take care
Danc.

PS: Steambirds is out. That means you can play it. Right now. If you like it, you owe Andy a beer. http://armorgames.com/play/5426/steambirds

GameMaker Blog: Some Questions about the YoYo Games Homepage

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:21:23 -0500

I don’t think that the potentially lucrative space on the YoYoGames.com homepage is being put to its best use. There is limited real-estate on the index page of what is a popular gaming site so surely it should be continually updated with fresh new content to entice people to play different games, discover Game Maker or get involved with the community.

There have been very few changes to the YoYo Games homepage since the launch of the site back in 2007 (see screenshots at the end of post). First things first – I am glad to see the cheesy 1990s marquee has gone, but there are still several features that make me ask ‘why?’.

Why isn’t the Game Maker logo on the homepage? Does the casual site user know what “GM 8.0″ is and why they should download it? Sales of Game Maker account for 90% of YoYo Games’ revenue and more users will result in more quality games which can be uploaded to the site.
Why is so much space given over to news that is often more than a month old?
Who decided that puzzle and shooter games deserve more attention than platform and arcade games? Arcade games are both more child-friendly and outnumber the ’shooters’ category both in the number of games on the site and the number of featured games.
Why do the most popular games continue to get so much exposure? Sure they can be listed somewhere but this space could be better used to highlight more recent creations. I think this makes the site look stale.
Why do the spotlight games have numbers? (Just visual). Also why only 2 lines of descriptive text? Far more words are given to the blog posts (see 2).
Why is space given to listing a games author rather than a description or larger screenshot? Who made a game really won’t be of interest to the casual browser.

YoYoGames.com homepage over time:

GameMaker Blog: Mid-week Community Links

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:36:51 -0500

Topic at the GMC asking about the possibility of Game Maker going open source. The debate seems somehow to have turned into a discussion about the differences (or lack of) between piracy and theft. With regards to the original question NakedPaulToast puts it best as he so often does – people simply aren’t interesting in contributing to an Open Source Game Maker as can be seen by the LateralGM and Enigma projects.

Something which will no doubt be reported in many places: The deadline for people wishing to upgrade a version of Game Maker 7 purchased in 2009 to version 8 for free is at the end the month. Surely anyone who cared about Game Maker would have done this already…

A quick blog post about someone creating their first iPhone game using the Unity 3D game development engine.

YoYo Games Glog: Game Maker 8, last chance to claim FREE upgrades

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:36:29 -0500

The free upgrade period for Game Maker 8 officially expires at the end of March. So anyone who PAID for Game Maker 7 at any time in 2009…you need to upgrade by the end of March if you want to get Game Maker 8 for free.

Blobs in Games: Retro art: breaking the rules

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:14:00 -0500

When you play a game with retro graphics, there are some things you expect. Pixelated graphics. Sprites. Limited color palette. At first glance, Realm of the Mad God has retro graphics like many other games:

However, Alex of Wild Shadow Studios put in several things that don't fit the usual retro graphics approach. The above screenshot shows that the world map and its pixels rotate with the player, while the trees, players, and monsters stay axis-aligned (like billboards in 3d games). Weapon projectiles move in any direction, not only the usual 4 or 8 that you might expect from a game on a tile grid.

Less apparent is the variable scale. The “pixels” aren't simply magnified by a fixed amount. Each object has its own scale, which you can see in this screenshot by comparing the trees:

Something that's easy to miss is that some effects have a shower of “pixels”. In this composite of three screenshots, you can see red “blood splatter” and some green remains of something that exploded (I think):

Also easy to miss is how the water effect breaks expectations of retro game art. The sprites themselves are pixelated, but the alignment doesn't match the map. With this, Alex produces water animation. Look closely at the sand and water boundary, and you'll see that the “pixels” don't match up:

One of the neater effects in this game is the 3d dungeon walls. The ground, tops of walls, and sides of walls are all rendered with pixel art. In this screenshot you can see one of the players is behind the wall:

I drew some examples of things that could be interesting but aren't actually in the game at this time: dissolve effects (teleportation?), shadows (to show height), shearing (to show motion), rotated body parts or weapons (for improved animation), and outlines (to improve contrast or show effects like damage or buffs):

The sprite art we got from Oryx is pixel art, but in a vector graphics engine there are lots of things you can do with the sprite art. For Realm of the Mad God, Alex played with rotation, scale, alignment, and 3d to produce some neat effects that you don't normally see in games with retro graphics.

GameMaker Blog: GMTalk Game Maker Podcast – Episode 2

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 09:18:49 -0500

Andrew McCluskey, Jack Brockley, Noel Berry and myself have recorded a second GMTalk Game Maker podcast episode.

In the 37 minute show we discuss the downfall of quality Game Maker media and experiences of collaborating in Game Maker team projects. We also look back at the Game Maker entries in the recent GameJolt weekend Jam as well as taking a quick look at some other issues.

Mono version: Direct Link (34MB)

Show Links

Most recent GMTech Issue
Most recent MarkUp Issue
Independent Developer magazine
GMWeekly
Overbyte magazine

The GMCG @ GMC
GMCG Wiki
Google Doc’s style online Game Maker IDE by James Rhodes (abandoned)
GameCog
Braingale Team
“The incredible Lyl Vypa“

Obligatory lack of Instant Play moan

The Book
Who is making money from Game Maker article

Official GameJolt Jam entry list
NAL’s look at the Game Maker entries in the GameJolt Jam.
SohoPogoHo
Vatn Squid
Paper Dreams

GMC CageMatch on Hiatus
GMLive on Hiatus

Amusing YYG forum post
Game Maker Blog twitter

Music: Store and Save by Hardstroke
The first episode

GameMaker Blog: GMLive’s 10th Show

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 11:38:15 -0500

GMLive’s tenth live Game Maker radio show was hosted today and lasted half an hour.

The date of the next show has not been announced as host Joshua is considering the possibility of a merge with GMIndie Radio to make a weekly show. Producer Jono announced that he would be resigning from his position at GMLive after today’s show.

Below is an ‘as live’ show recording complete with incredible levels of feedback and crackle. You’d have to be pretty dedicated to make it to the end (when the site tracked just 4 listeners).

Direct link or flash player:

Previous GMLive epsiode.

GameMaker Blog: Book Review: Game Maker 8 Game Creation – Practical Tips & Techniques Vol.1

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:27:00 -0500

My first impression of Game Maker 8 Game Creation, released a week ago, is that it is more like a magazine than a book.

As the title suggests the guide is focused on version 8 of Game Maker. A preface advises that the information present is correct for the Pro edition however the vast majority of the details provided are equally true for the free Lite version. Although aimed at “starters” you are obviously expected to already be aware of Game Maker as there is no mention of where it can be obtained.

The contents listing shows that the book is essentially a compilation of questions that people may ask about Game Maker’s capabilities – the majority of which are then answered in 1 or 2 pages illustrated with screenshots.

The guide is certainly not for beginners with no prior experience of programming. Readers are thrown in at the deep end with talk of Direct3D and scripts with no explanation as to what they are – the first question is about Game Maker’s 3D capabilities. An explanation of the various elements of Game Maker comes only on page 43 under the “I am confused – how do the terms Program, Room, Level, Object and Window relate to each others?” question.

A minor irritant is the constant references to ‘GM8′. Incredibly in the entire 161 page book the phrase ‘Game Maker’ is only mentioned 4 times. Whilst this acronym is explained at the start of the book the same is not true of others used throughout the guide. For example an extract of the book reads “GM8 does have cosmetic 3D capability (which is stronger than the 3D feature offered by its competitor MMF)”. Presumably MMF is Multimedia Fusion, a topic with which the author seems to have a mini-obsession given its constant acronymic mentions (he has published two books on the game creation tool), but this is not explained anywhere. Sure a quick Google didn’t hurt but this book is supposed to be providing tips and techniques not causing confusion.

Some of the questions answered are just moot. For example “Should I start with room first or object first?” and hands up who doesn’t have a sound card installed on their current machine. “Is a sound card REQUIRED on the development station?” takes up a page of the guide. Some of the questions seem downright bizarre such as “What is the optimal display resolution and color depth for GM8 to operate at design time?” I doubt many people have even considered asking that question.

There are some more useful questions such as “Why is full screen mode preferable and why should mode change be discouraged at runtime?” which covers an issue that people may initially overlook.

As you will be able to tell from the contents listing, and the questions quoted above, most of the guide is not focused on active game creation but on questions relating to the functionality of the Game Maker software itself.

The Object Design section will probably be the most relevant to most Game Maker users and may help beginners become familiar with the basics of Object Orientated Programming as the basics of sprites, objects, rooms and the concepts of persistency, object instances, collision checking and inheritance are covered. Use of the phrase “this parent object thing” seems very dismissive though. This part of the book also includes interesting responses to queries about using several smaller objects instead of one large object for example to control various weapons on a spaceship or enable certain areas to be more sensitive to damage than others. There are also various questions relating to the use of views before the book abruptly ends with the promise of future updates on the publisher’s website.

Plugs are given to LateralGM the cross-platform Java based Game Maker IDE and Liam Brummitt’s GMToolbox resource site. I would support the Paint.NET recommendation as I have used the free tool as my sole graphics program for a number of years though it has to be said this mainly consists of simple drawings and screenshots! Again – no link though.

The quality of language is not of the standard I would expect to find in an authoritative guide. For example on the subject of the best Operating System to use part of the response is “Vista itself is way too power hungry. It eats up half of all system resources even when not running anything. Windows Server 2003 is never optimized for front end application like the GM8. Windows 7 is too new”.

“Are GM8 projects and games SECURE?” mentions the Game Maker decompiler but doesn’t make suggestions on how you can protect your game against being readable by using an obfuscater. There are also minor but noticeable mistakes such as a reference to “windows based games” [sic]. My general opinion is that the book has been published too early and lacks the basic explanations required for beginners and the depth required to to be the ultimate Game Maker technical resource for more established game makers. I am struggling to see who the book is really aimed at.

The “How do I measure actual runtime screen performance?” answer tells you to use debug mode. But no explanation as to what it is or how to access it is given until later in the guide. The whole book seems disjointed.

In short I was disappointed. There clearly is some potential in the Question and Answers approach taken and some of the answers were quite insightful but the consistency and quality just wasn’t there.

A second volume dealing with “serious coding” is planned for the future.

[AMAZON $13.95]: Game Maker 8 Game Creation: Practical Tips & Techniques Vol.1

GameMaker Blog: New Book: Game Maker 8 Game Creation – Practical Tips & Techniques Vol.1

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:00:15 -0500

HobbyPress have published a short book focusing on the practical side of game creation using Game Maker 8.

Game Maker 8 Game Creation – Practical Tips & Techniques Vol.1 has 162 pages.

“The goal of this book is to provide starters with rich technical information so the best decision and judgment can be exercised when creating games through GM8.

This is not a step-by-step tutorial. This is also not a guide book kind of overview material. We place our focus on the practical side of game creation – practical tips and techniques one will definitely need when starting out a game project. We also tell exactly what can and cannot be done with the GM8 engine, and the kind of performance drawback that can be foreseen when the platform is not fed with the right inputs.”

-HobbyPress

At $13.95 on Amazon this is probably the cheapest Game Maker focused book available today.

A review of Game Maker 8 Game Creation – Practical Tips & Techniques Vol.1 will be posted within a couple of days.

Other Game Maker books:

Jacob Habgood and Mark Overmars’ follow up to the successful Game Maker’s Apprentice, titled The Game Maker’s Companion aimed at intermediate level developers is due to be released in April this year.
In July 2009 Course Technology published Jerry Lee Ford’s book Getting Started with Game Maker: Review. Author Interview.

GameMaker Blog: Game Jolt Jam – Game Maker entrants

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 08:03:01 -0500

Last weekend, indie game website Game Jolt hosted its first Jam. This differentiated from its competitions by dropping the competitive aspect and focusing on getting developers to share their work regularly and, in general, have fun doing it. Most participants set up Livestream accounts and broadcast live video footage of them working on their entries.

Given the short development period (48 hours) there were surprisingly few dropouts. Eleven entries were garnered by the Jam in total, eight of which were created using Game Maker. These are as follows.

Paper Dreams
Created by: Zack Banack
Plays at time of writing: 244
Already picked up and featured by both Game Jolt and Indie Games Blog, Paper Dreams, a game that I could not bypass the difficulty screen of, is a graphically-papery version of Cactus’ popular “Ad Nauseam 2”. I couldn’t judge this but it seems to be very popular with players and, from the screenshots, certainly looks good.
Download: http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/arcade/paper-dreams/1647/

Jam
Created by: Comico
Plays at time of writing: 10
A nice idea marred by the fact it gets difficult far too quickly, feels incredibly unfinished and is a little glitchy. For instance, your guy will be walking (in animation) when he’s not moving, but not when you are. Basically, you have to get to the end of each level while a number of turrents shoot rapidly at you. I only got as far as the second level due to its difficulty, which is a problem. Could definitely do with some audio feedback and work in every area because the premise is certainly solid enough.
Download: http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/action/jam/1667/

Tubus
Created by: YellowAfterlife
Plays at time of writing: 24*
*GJ version only. The copy on Game Jolt, to me and, it seems, others too, may not work. If you can’t get it to run, see the alternative link. This is a slow, but certainly pretty, vector-based game in which you’re moving along the inside of a tube shooting at square obstacles and avoiding the shots of other enemies. The MIDI music wasn’t particularly fitting (YellowAfterlife has stated the GJ version, which doesn’t work for some, uses MP3 music more suited to the game) but wasn’t unbearable, and the game was alright in general. Certainly the aesthetics of the game are its strongest point though.
Download: http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/arcade/tubus/1669/
Alternative Link: http://solidfiles.com/d/uIcJ

Vatn Squid
Created by: Ted Lauterbach, Heatex, IceWave
Plays at time of writing: 731
Vatn Squid, created by the same guy that came first in the last Game Jolt competition along with an impressive stack of other achievements, is a strong bullet-hell offering featuring ten bosses, each with their own sprites, names (appearing before they start firing), and distinctly different bullet patterns. The game uses blend modes and high-quality sprites to great aesthetic merit, and its variety make it very popular, as is often the case with Lauterbach’s games. It was featured on Indie Games Blog quicker than Game Jolt managed to list the entries, another indication as to its quality.
Download: http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/shooter/vatn-squid/1672/

Face Generation
Created by: Andrew Brophy
Plays at time of writing: 30
Another very Brophy-esque offering, Face Generation is a mix between bullet hell and boss rush. There’s only one boss, which improves with time as opposed to weakening. Accompanied by trippiness achieved with both an obscure but very pretty background and a fairly catchy background track, this is a game you may not feel compelled to return to after one play, but you will enjoy it. If only his games didn’t force a screen resolution change by default – my computer seriously hates it when things do that.
Download: http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/shooter/face-generation/1689/

Dissipate
Created by: Ed Scheindlin
Plays at time of writing: 52
A game in which each level is based on a proverb/saying. Since Karoshi’s popularity soared there have been a burst of average games in which lateral thinking is the key to success, but Dissipate differentiates itself just enough to be a worthwhile play. Its graphics aren’t perfect but they do the job and the lateral aspects generally made sense with their given proverbs. Only problem with it? The controls made my hands ache – I guess there’s a logic to using “U” for “Up” but it just meant my hands were too close together and it made play uncomfortable after a few levels.
Download: http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/puzzle/dissipate/1665/

30 Seconds To Extermination
Created by: NessXX, BK-TN, ChoclateSailor
Plays at time of writing: 34
The third game I couldn’t get working (second I couldn’t play at all). Upon clicking Play I was thrown into an infinite loop of errors about some uninitialised variables or something. A number of tips supplied by its creators, including an unhelpful “Play the game again, it only happens 1/100 times” (seemingly not the case, three times in a row and it still threw the error up, as did playing on YoYo Games and redownloading it) did nothing. Reception from the minority able to play it seems okay though.
Download: http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/arcade/30-seconds-to-extermination/1662/

SohoPogoHo
Created by: Andrew McCluskey, Sean Buller
Plays at time of writing: 28
I can’t really review this, but I can’t exclude it from the list either since it’s one of the GM-made entries. Therefore I’ll go with a description instead: SohoPogoHo is a game in which you play as a prostitute that stands out from the crowd by incorporating a pogo stick into her “work”. It’s also used as a handy, if difficult-to-control, mode of transportation in getting to the clients. The game focuses mainly on the transportation aspect, leaving the actual job as a suggestive dust cloud and a randomly-generatedly-named “act”. Also includes Game Jolt trophies.
Download: http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/platformer/sohopogoho/1655/

Given the success of the Jam and the high interest by both developers and players, not to mention how pleased the staff of Game Jolt were with the results, it seems highly likely they will become a regular part of the website, if only to fill in the time not occupied by contests.

GameMaker Blog: Indie Game Mag – Issue 9 – Copyright

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 09:02:32 -0500

Received an e-mail today advising me that issue 9 (March-April) of the commercial Indie Game Mag had been released and was available to download.

One change since the last edition – they have changed their re-use message from a Creative Commons license that enabled anyone to freely share the magazine to a copyright statement. As FredFredrickson commented on our previous post this was “probably an oversight on their part”. Pretty amusing but the article seems to have bought the issue to their attention.

The publication recently released a $0.99 iPhone App but subscriptions are now back to their normal prices (~$3.30 an issue).

You can download/discuss the previous edition of Indie Game Mag (released under Creative Commons license) here.

GameMaker Blog: GMIndie Magazine Issue 7

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:17:13 -0500

The final issue of GMIndie magazine has been released. Download PDF (1.5MB)

To quote from the welcome message at the start of the issue “We are constantly working on multiple projects at once. It’s fun for the first few minutes. Then it gets tiring” – reminds me of something I may have mentioned last month.

There are reviews of the GameJolt contest winning Super Space Rogues by rotten_tater, Bloxbub 3 by ThatGamesGuy, Boxman and Boxbro 7 and the worms-like Team Warfare.

Also included is an interview with toadfrogs and an article asking “What is YYGF becoming?”. A mess. That’s what.

They still need a proofreader. Hopefully by the time the first issue of Game Developers Digest comes out they will have found one.

GameMaker Blog: Social Games and Unity 100K

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:11:04 -0500

Just two links to share this week:

Casual gaming company PopCap have released the results (pdf) of their 2010 social gaming survey. If you like bar charts and tables, Farmville or are interested in this area of game creation it may be worth a look. Also may be interested in an article from the past: Micropayments on YoYo Games?

Unity recently passed 100,000 registered users of its cross-platform game development tool. Helped no doubt by the decision towards the end of last year to stop charging for the lowest-level license version.

GameMaker Blog: OHAI Overbyte Magazine!

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 04:26:58 -0500

YoYo Games moderator RedChu has published the first issue of Overbyte which “will try to be a monthly magazine”.

Unlike many other Game Maker magazines Overbyte does not take itself too seriously – a good idea of what to expect comes for the very first page, headed “OHAI”, which states:

“This being our first issue, it means it’s our biggest ever. Inside these virtual pages you will find some of the most intriguing artifacts to surface since another intriguing artifact that surfaced sometime ago,…”

There are some amusing observations starting off with “it’s safe to assume the majority of those games [entered into YYG competition 5] aren’t going to win.”

Content wise there is a short news round-up, a look at the upcoming GameJolt weekend Game Jam, an interview with Ben Smith – creator of the SigmaNine game maker community, 6 game reviews and a few odds-and-ends at the back on the magazine.

I quite like the humorous comments on stories throughout the magazine although I expect this will serve only to annoy some people and the novelty may wear off after a few issues!

The best issue of a Game Maker magazine that has been released for a long time.

Download (left click only)

GameMaker Blog: Game Review – Boxes (Twenty3)

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:19:10 -0500

Note: This review was originally written for GMTech Issue 17 back in September ‘09. However, the GMTech website is down and no news on it has been heard of for several months so I’m sharing it here.

Do you ever play a game which is really, REALLY addictive? As in, you stop playing after five minutes only to realise the five minutes was actually an hour. To me, Boxes was this. It’s not hugely varied in gameplay, and there’s only one mode of gameplay, but it really does hit something brilliant. About five seconds into my first play, I was thinking it was just a graphically enhanced take on that game you get in the Game Maker’s Apprentice, “Lazarus”. It soon showed me it was much, much more.

The premise of the game, you ask? Well, basically, you’re a box. You can strafe and jump. Throughout the game, other boxes fall down. You have to progress upwards while ensuring no other boxes fall ontop of you. To make the game less boring, there are also special blocks, which do things when you touch them such as make you invincible, increase your jump height, slow down the gameplay, or simply count down then blow up Crash Bandicoot TNT-style. Furthermore, strange occurences will happen every now and then. These include “waves”, where a box is dropped down every “column” in turn, and a temperature increase, which adds more danger – an ever-growing pool of lava beneath you.

Graphically, the game isn’t perfect. It’s more than adequate though. The background is the best aspect – an animated, great looking pattern of lines and shapes. The boxes themselves go nicely with the game style, being a tad see-through and only being outlined on the sides if there’s not a box adjacent to each one. In my opinion, the font used let the side down a bit though – I’ve seen Arial used in so much it’s starting to tire.

Sound-wise, the sound effects are fine. Music is a strong point – a hard, beaty track that goes fantastically with the fast paced gameplay. Then, of course, there’s the extract of Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees… that works well too, amazingly. My only disappointment came from the fact you can only get the achievement that triggers Stayin’ Alive once.

In terms of originality, games like this have been done before, though Boxes adds enough of its own content to keep it feeling like a fresh idea.

I’d highly recommend you play Boxes. It’s clear that a lot of work has been put into it by Twenty3 to make it as fun as possible. It paid off. Move over, various illegal drugs, a new addiction has entered the arena… and with this one, you’re more likely to be stayin’ alive.

Play Boxes on YoYo Games

GameMaker Blog: Who is making money from Game Maker?

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 05:21:26 -0500

Before we start yes I am aware that people choose to use Game Maker as a hobby, to learn how to program or to meet new friends from around the world. Money is not the reason why tens of thousands of people opt to download and use Game Maker every year or the reason why hundreds of people launch services or websites providing resources for community members.

We know YoYo Games are not making money from Game Maker and a recent look at GMB’s finances got me pondering just “who is making money from Game Maker?”. Presumably someone must be somewhere down the line. Forgetting your ISPs, electricity providers and computer retailers and looking a little closer at the users.

Commercial game creators?
It is infamously difficult to get Game Maker users to part with money. The majority of forum members are of school age with many running illegally cracked versions of the software. Thankfully games can be marketed outside of the YYG/GMC where people are more willing to pay for games providing they are of sufficient quality. A spreadsheet showing sales figures for several commercial Game Maker games is available here (please add to it if you know any more). Although some of these figures may seem quite large in most cases they do not match the equivalent of the minimum wage which could be earned if the hours spent developing the game were used for employment.

Verdict: In very small numbers.

YoYo Games?
Before YoYo Games came along Game Maker was run pretty much single handedly by its developer Mark Overmars. The official Game Maker website hosted few games itself and instead linked to two approved community run websites.

When YoYo Games came along expenses increased vastly. YoYoGames.com is one of the top 15,000 websites in the world, required significant coding to setup and has large ongoing costs with over 725GB of data served on average each day last month. Not to mention the costs of developing future versions of Game Maker including Game Maker 7 for Mac and porting the runner so that games can run on a variety of hand held devices. So far these have resulted in losses of over $600,000.

Verdict: No

Community websites?
By “community websites” I am encompassing all websites providing resources as well as forums and membership sites. Very few sites are regularly updated for more than a year or so but two of the oldest sites still going are Game Maker Games and the not-really-GM focused 64Digits created in 2003 and 2004 respectively. In the past GMG has carried AdSense but currently both sites appear to be completely ad free.

Verdict: Possible to earn some small change.

Media?
As with games considerable time and effort is put into producing media products for Game Maker users to consume. The 10 magazine issues released by the “big two” in 2008 totalled 401 pages and that is excluding Russell’s Quarterly, GMWeekly or any of the lower quality magazines. All for free and with extremely minimal adverts which in most cases were given in exchange for content or were part of a cross-promotion deal and not sold.

Then there are those that don’t hide behind their screens and have created video shows such as Game Maker TV resulting in the need to purchase expensive equipment.

Verdict: No

Book authors?
Mark Overmars and Jacob Habgood’s The Game Maker’s Apprentice has been far more successful than the authors predicted selling 5,000 copies in the first 90 days it was on sale.

Even today, almost three and a half years after its release, it is still ranked highly in Amazon best sellers lists around the world and as a result Mark and Jacob are working on a follow up. There have also been books written by third parties including Jerry Lee Ford’s Getting Started with Game Maker and Basic Projects in Game Maker.

Verdict: Yes

Hosts?
WillHostForFood is perhaps the best known site hosting predominantly Game Maker content to close recently but there have been many other smaller sites run by Game Maker users which have also closed, MyGMHost is just one of these. The problem with these file host websites is the large amount of data they transfer and the minimal amounts of advertising that they show – especially if you allow files to be linked to directly from third-party sites. WHF claimed to be spending $10-150 a month, depending on whether you believe an advertisement where they tried to sell the site or the excuse given to Game Maker users, on hosting before they vanished (without having learnt how to make a backup) two and a half years after the site launched.

Verdict: No.

Photo of Jacob Habgood by Flickr user Preoccupations (CC).

GameMaker Blog: GMB Survey: A Big Thank You (and the results!)

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 14:49:29 -0500

I am really pleased with the level of participation we received in our recent site survey. There were over fifty full submissions in less than 24 hours. The feedback provided by those who kindly gave us a few minutes of their time will be put to good use to improve our future offerings.

It feels strange to have had to ask in this way as readers are happy to comment on Game Maker, Game Maker games, and the Game Maker websites and media publications we cover but we rarely get to hear your opinions on the site itself.

Below is a summary of the results:

Opinion was split pretty evenly on whether we should add more game reviews and interviews.
The vast majority of you (~90%) wanted to see more technical items.
Two thirds of you thought more posts would be good but only 10% wanted “lots more”.
I was pleasantly surprised with the ratings for trustworthiness, speed of coverage, breaking stores and quality of articles.
90% of you knew that GMTalk existed but less than a quarter of respondents had listened to it.

Should we have more game reviews?

Would you be interested in more technical items?

Do you want more interviews?

What do you think about the frequency of posts?

Perhaps the most insightful feedback came in the form of the textual responses received to the last two questions in the survey.

There were several mentions of the general blandness of the site’s design with people wanting to see more colourful pages. We also got useful suggestions on the types of content people want to see covered – these ranged from a request for “more opinion pieces to provoke debate about Game Maker, and it’s community” to in-depth analytics of trends in stories and graphs, for in-depth technical articles and reviews of tutorials and for more content that is unique to the site and cannot be found elsewhere.

Although in general the feedback was overwhelmingly positive the sheer range of suggested improvements and topics to cover bought home to me that however hard we try we will not be able to please everyone and indeed that it would be foolish to try to do so.

In an ideal world we would cover everything submitted but it isn’t practical both in the amount of time it would take us to research and present such materials and the demands it would place on you if you wanted to read it all!

We will work on incorporating many of the things you wanted to see over the next few months. You have have already noticed that we know allow you to make ‘nested’ comments in response to a message left by another visitor and the nature of the recent post comparing the Game Maker radio shows partly came about as a respondent said they enjoyed such articles.

Several of you asked if I would make a copy of the results available publicly. Here is a copy of the data with the names removed and some comments I made in response to suggestions.

Looking back at this post I do hope we don’t have too many colour-blind readers.

GameMaker Blog: GMLive 9 and GMIndie Radio 21

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:08:56 -0500

Two Game Maker radio programmes were broadcast today. The first was GMLive at 11am EST (4pm GMT) which was followed five hours later by GMIndie Radio. Although the two radio shows started off very different from each other when they first launched I believe that particularly since the start of the year they have been converging in the types of content they cover.

GMLive

After a couple of broadcasts troubled with technical issues today’s was pretty straight forward with a number of topics discussed. Sound quality still leaves a lot to be desired, to quote myself from the chatroom which accompanies the live broadcast – “How have you not learnt how to turn of skype sounds after 8 shows?” [sic]. It seems strange that the earlier broadcasts had better sound quality and fewer technical problems than those produced this year.

The links below are to an ‘as heard’ recording minus the music and random pauses that occurred presumably due to server lag. At one point the player stopped working completely so a section of the show is missing.

Listen again:

Direct link: gmlive-13-feb-2010.mp3.

Next show: 27th February (previous show).

GMIndie Radio

GMIndie, who are apparently satisfied with the explanation given by their webhost for what currently amounts to 13 consecutive days of complete downtime, currently have a show every Saturday.

On today’s show Nathan Hurde revealed that his latest magazine Tailware Times is turning into a blog and Brian talked about his new general programming magazine. The game reviews are certainly better on GMIndie than on GMLive as the hosts seem to know what they are going to say about the games rather than the all to often “I haven’t played that game”.

Listen again: Via GMIndie forum

Next show: 20th February (previous show).

Although GMLive started off with shows regularly lasting between one and a half and two hours, the two most recent broadcasts have been nearer to 45 minutes. Conversely GMIndie Radio recently increased the aimed length of their weekly show from 15 to 25 minutes and today’s show was actually a similar length to GMLive. GMIndie also did have guests or accept callers on their earlier shows however now have adapted GMLive’s “everyone is welcome” policy.

What is your opinion of the Game Maker radio shows? Which do you prefer and what could be done to improve future broadcasts?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

GMTutorials Articles: Draggable Objects Method 3

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 02:22:55 -0500

A smoother and more accurate method for dragging objects in game.

GMTutorials Articles: Draggable Objects Method 2

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 02:08:11 -0500

A smoother method for dragging objects in game.

GMTutorials Articles: Draggable Objects Method 1

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 01:55:33 -0500

A simple way to drag objects around in a game.

GameMaker Blog: GMB Design Contest Winner

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:09:03 -0500

Three weeks ago we launched our competition to design a favicon and new Twitter avatar to represent the site.

There were approximately 10 entries submitted. Some were based on our existing grey theme and avatar whereas others used totally new concepts.

Although the winning designs are similar to what we previously had they are definitely an improvement and don’t require a dramatic redesign of the website (something which will not be happening soon) if implemented.

Here are the winning images created by Matt Scorah. Matt gets to choose from a copy of Game Maker 8 Pro, an Indie game of his choice or advertising on this blog for his prize.

GameMaker Blog: GMC Reviewer’s Choice Forums Now Open

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:55:26 -0500

The official Game Maker Community has now launched a new forum called the “Review’s Choice” forum. The forum is for “reviews of GM games the reviewers liked and think deserve special recognition”. Any good quality game maker game is eligible for a review. According to the posting guidelines only selected members in the GMC review team can post a review. Regular forum users can comment and rate the review using the topic rating system.

To get accepted as a reviewer you must submit your review to one of the review forum moderators such as KC LC or Frostblade. If you are accepted, you will be expected to write 2-3 reviews during your term. KC LC reminds potential reviewers to keep the review positive and constructive.

The review moderators are now accepting reviewers. The review forum isn’t open just yet, but is expected to open shortly.

GameMaker Blog: GMIndie Magazine to Close

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 04:44:40 -0500

Brian Fetcher’s GMIndie magazine is to cease publishing issues after the next release, number 7, comes out.

It will be replaced by Game Developers Digest “aimed at c++, game maker, etc. Anything that makes games that is for the PC.”

In a post on the organisation’s forums Brian wrote:

The magazine content layout will be as follows:

Introduction & Table of Contents

3 Game Reviews

1 Interview

1 Tutorial

1 Cross word puzzle

Useful Coding

End Notes