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welcome
contents
Smell the fresh air? No, don’t go running outside yet. I’m talking about the fresh air given off our improved magazine design for issue 11. We hope it’s given you a break from the old same looking layout that we have had for the last 5 issues. The best part of the new design is that it’s a lot cleaner and feels that little more full. You would have also noticed our new clean issue cover design. In addition, the reviews section has been re-designed to provide bigger reviews.
NEWS
Previously it was suggested bookmarks should be added to the magazine to make navigation easier. Starting from this issue we have introduced a new interactive contents menu. The contents list (on the right) allows you to click on any subject in the list and it will take you to that page. It works in the same way bookmarks do, however we decided to provide something a bit different instead of the plain-old PDF bookmarks. So what is in this issue? Well I guess you are going to have to read it to find out. I’m sure you will find the articles and reviews in this issue to be another juicy read. But a few of my favourite picks for this issue would be: Violent Games - Why So Popular?, Writing a Good Help File, U3D v2.0 Exclusive Interview and the Love Up! Preview. So be sure to check those out. Also check out the “Visit Snow Moon” article to receive a special offer only available through Game Maker Technology Magazine. The Game Maker Technology Wiki has also been going through many changes. Recent updates have brought the comments and rating system for all the pieces of content present in the wiki. There have also been quite a lot of new pieces of content that have been put online, so be sure to check out the Latest Changes area on the wiki. While reading through the magazine you may see a note at the end of the article asking you to read the full or extended version on the wiki. This is a bonus for people who want to read a little more on some of the articles. Enough about us, what’s happening in the Game Maker World? Well not a lot so far. YoYo Games has celebrated its first year running and 100,00 registered users. The next big news to come out will be the release of the Mac version of Game Maker. Then you can expect news about the C++ rebuild of Game Maker and when the next The Game Maker Race competition will be. Other than that, there have been some cool new games created recently and posted on the GMC and YoYo Games Website. Gmjab Editor
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WHAT’S GOING ON STAFF SAY
ARTICLES 04 05 06 07 09 10 10 11 12 14
GMTV FOLLOW UP WHAT MAKES GENRES FUN? SWEARING & INTERNET SPEECH IN GAMES WRITING A GOOD HELP FILE HOW NOT TO BE A N00B ON THE GMC THE WIKI CRAZE VIOLENT GAMES - WHY SO POPULAR? SNOW MOON VS 64 DIGITS YOYO GAMES, A YEAR IN POWER USER OPINION: WHAT ATTRACTED YOU TO GM?
GM DEV 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 21
ESA’S MUSIC DEV RECOMMENDATIONS SIMPLIFYING A LEVEL EDITOR SIMPLE GAME CALCULATIONS ATTACHING OBJECTS TO OTHER OBJECTS MANIPULATING A STRING TUTORIAL: SELECT INSTANCES TUTORIAL: STRAFING TUTORIAL: MIRROR A ROOM
EXCLUSIVES 22 24 24 25 25 26
INTERVIEW WITH: DR. BEST - U3D 2.0 INSIGHT INTO: FLAIL INSIGHT INTO: VORTEC MADHOUSE ON DS INSIGHT INTO: LOVE UP! EXCLUSIVE: LOVE UP DEMO
REVIEWS 27 28 29 30 31 32 33
L4NIMATION STUDIO BATTLE OF THE WHITE EAGLE CELL BURST 3D RACER WINTER COMP 1ST: FROZZD WINTER COMP 2ND: GARDEN GNOME CARNAGE WINTER COMP 3RD: GRANNY AND SNOWMEN
EXTRAS 34 35 36 38 39 40
VISIT SNOW MOON INTERVIEW WITH: KAIROS GMT OUTLOOK COMIC CHECK OUT CLOSING
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online
what’s going on
Website:............................................www.gamemakertech.info Forum:..................................www.gamemakertech.info/forum/ Wiki:............................................www.gmtechwiki.wikidot.com Email:..........................................support@gamemakertech.info
GMT: Forum and Staff Updates Lately the GMTM forum has had a few updates. The forum now includes these new sections: GMT Discussion, Game Maker Discussion, GMT Wiki Discussion and the Lounge. These updates will help sort the different discussions into their own categories. Hopefully, you will enjoy these new forums.
staff gamez93 Hiyukantaro GM Tech Owner ESA Rixeno gmjab tomrussell Editor Aertcz Timoi Rup13 RoboBOT Assistant Editor RedChu Researchers: GMmarine Reviewers: Writers Bendodge Christian Sciberras
Mediocre Xantheil
Comic Artist: Bob–11500K Proofreaders: NAL eagleprof Special Thanks: Alex Dr. Best Elmernite avrildg ShaX
staff say
by bendodge Every now and then you come across a real gem of a website. I’ve found a few sites recently that I think more people ought to know about. First is gmtoolbox.com. This site is an index of many of the best Game Maker DLL’s and extensions. Its designer, Optical Liam, apparently has an obsession with aesthetics. The one-page site uses well over 400 lines of Javascript for a fancy automatic searching, sliding things opened and closed with fade and smoothly scrolling the browser all over the page. I’m not sure if this is good of bad, but it can keep you entertained for a while. Eye candy notwithstanding, it really does find things well. It has a very large list of tools, with things I’ve never heard of like PHP4Games and DraggerDLL. It’s definitely worth a bookmark. Another site to check out is Jassinc’s gamemakerresource.com, which is basically a topsites list. The thing that makes this site stand out is its usability; there are several topsites lists, but this is probably the most useful. It’s registration is very streamlined, and it allows you to visit sites with one click or view detailed descriptions and nonexistant ratings (it doesn’t seem to have much user feedback yet). Sites can be searched or sorted by category, with a few “top in x” statistic sections on the homepage. There are many more, but these are just a couple sites worth visiting, if for nothing else than to make sure your stuff is listed.
Also over the last two months there have been staff changes. The Game Maker Technology Magazine now totals 19 staff members, which includes our new 8 members: ESA, Rixeno, tomrussell, Aertcz, Timoi, RoboBOT, RedChu and Xantheil. However we did say good-bye to many previous members who produced excellent work. You will find some of their last pieces in this issue. You can expect to see the work from our new members in Issue 12. GMT: Slogan Competition The Game Maker Technology Magazine launched a slogan competition at the beginning of 2008 to win a cash prize, but due to the small number of entries, it has been canceled. GMTM apologizes for the inconvenience of those who entered to win. We will launch this competition again in the future. YYG: YoYo for a year YoYo Games has been running for a year and is also celebrating 100,000 registered website. The YoYo Games website was launched last year near the end of February. YoYo Games is looking to the future to go even further with a possible 1 million registrations next year. YoYo Games also receives 500,000 unique visitors per month, amounting to 6,000,000 per year. They expect to receive 5,000,000 unique visits per month in time to come. YYG: Future Website Upgrades YoYo Games has been looking into three possible website upgrades lately. One concern for many was the removal of the “Download Game” button on the website, allowing games to be played VIA “Instant Play” only. This was one measure YoYo Games could take to prevent games being decompiled. However many opposed this idea and recommend the user should have the choice to allow his/her game to be downloaded or only available through Instant Play. YoYo Games then agreed to the suggestion on giving the user a choice. The next plan for YoYo Games is: In game advertising. This will allow ads to appear during the game when played VIA Instant Play. YoYo Games has yet to decide who the service provider (that delivers these ads) will be. Lastly, “Ad revenue sharing” will be the next big improvement allowing game developers to receive money from their games. YoYo Games is still looking into how this system will be setup.
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GMTV Follow-up
What’s happened since GMTV started up? And how well has it done? Gmjab will take a look into it. Let’s face it, how many so-called “New Ideas” and crazes have gone around the Game Maker Community? And how many have actually worked out? Many of you would answer this question very easily. There have been more new ideas and crazes about than you could count and probably 90% of them fail badly. But enough doom and gloom about ideas. Many would remember last year when the topic “GMTV” first appeared on the GMC. Very quickly people flocked to pitch in their ideas for GMTV and to give Danny support. However you can’t have good comments without some bad and this is exactly what happened. Eventually the good comments died down as GMTV was still in production. As you probably know GMTV was working on the introduction for quite some time. Time went by and Danny (GMTV’s Creator) started to cancel off reviews for episode one and left comments to give hope that episode one would come out eventually. A month or two passed and it seemed the first episode would never be complete. This time period gave reason to many users to post downgrading comments like: “This will fail”, “This’ll never come out” or “A 14yr old kid can’t do it”. Soon enough there was a competitor, GMHV. Game Maker Helper Videos by nateistoraw quickly started up and posted their first video. Even though GMTV and GMHV weren’t actually doing the same thing, there defiantly was some tension between them. By the time GMTV episode one came out GMHV had already posted 2 or 3 Game Maker videos. GMHV was criticized by its low quality and sometimes unhelpful videos. Then GMHV released a “Good Bye until next time” video and GMHV hasn’t been heard of since then. Episode 1 So the first episode was released and it had mixed user views. Some people thought it turned out better than they expected, others believed it could have been much better. Though it was great to see episode one released, the release could have went more smoothly. The GMTV site only had about 1GB of bandwidth to start off with which brought problems as they ran out of bandwidth very fast. Danny was quite surprised with the amount of people that actually watched it. Also, as people said, the review system was not very good and a bit random. Episode one did have offensive language which I think was a downfall with this episode. Finally people didn’t expect to actually see Danny as the host on the GMTV video. Overall, everyone starts somewhere and this is where GMTV started. Episode one had a decent effort put into it.
Episode 2 Compared to episode one, this episode was a 100% improvement even from the creator’s point of view. As I sit back and watch the season themed second episode, I wish there was some way to skip to a certain part, like a bookmark, even though this is not possible with video unless you know where it is in the video exactly. The episode featured some great improvements, first with a new categorized review system and secondly I didn’t really hear any offensive language used. However I did find the live action of the host too dark and I thought the speech could use some enthusiasm as it sounded like he was just reading a script. Even though there are ads in episode one, I thought it was funny how there was an ad break just like real TV, only the ads are short, unlike the 1-2 minute ad breaks on TV. Secondly, are you a speed reader? You’ll have to be for the credits. GMTV has the fastest credit scrolling I’ve ever seen, but who stays around to read all the credits anyway? I think Danny has very much looked into what the users wanted and has delivered with episode two. I also thought there was a nice choice of content. Good work. Interview GMT: How has GMTV been progressing? Are you finding it easier to put together? DNY: “Somewhat. I’m more used to how to review and how different ways that I record/review can speed up the process. But really in episode 2, I had to edit the old intro and add a winter theme which was a really lengthy process and the live action filming is just as hard. Remembering the lines when live is hard. When I review I see them on the computer, but when I’m live it takes me about 2 hours to get a 2 minute video right.” GMT: Looking into the future, where do you see GMTV? DNY: “It really is tough to say at this point. In about 2 years if GMTV is around I really want to change it completly, make it an online network with several different shows. Sadly it is unlikely, so in the future I see GMTV being well liked and only going to get better and better.” GMT: Is there anything special coming up in the next episode? DNY: “In episode 3 you will see a countdown of the top 10 games from the YoYo Competition. As well as our very first interview. As for other episodes we plan to add more segments besides the reviews and interviews” Read the full interview on the GMTech Wiki Written by gmjab
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What Makes Genres Fun?
What attracts you to your favourite game genre? bendodge analyses some popular genres Video games. Little colored spots wiggling around on a 2D surface. Why do humans (especially young ones) love them so much? Humans in the modern technological age are spending more and more of their time playing electronic games on consoles and computers, and other people (like us) are making them too. What is so attractive about them? The basic reason is simple: games allow us to change our mental environment, usually for something more entertaining than reality. But different types of games have different attractiveness to different people. Here are some of the basic genres and some reasons why people like them. First-person shooters are a perennial favorite, especially among college-age males. These games are fun because they allow us to do things we can’t normally do, like running around blowing things up. Most FPS’s also have multiplayer modes, which allow you the extra fun of pretending to fragment your friends. The adventure/storyline games are a bit different, with most oriented toward a single player. They try to suck the player into the storyline and usually have fully rounded characters. These games require lots of time to play and are particularly popular with people who have lots of spare time and want to exchange their reality for a fantasy world. Online role-playing games can add the aforementioned multiplayer aspect, but these games take a very long time to develop and are usually not suited to Game Maker. Some notable exception to the storyline games are the Mariotype platformers. These games do use an engaging storyline, but they also rely heavily on creative gameplay and bright, whimsical artwork. The recent Super Mario Galaxy is a prime example of this. Strategy games are a favorite of math fans, geeks, and older adult males, and require much more thinking than other genres. These games usually put players in command of an army which they must improve and use to attack their opponents. These games represent an intellectual challenge, and dedicated players tend to form groups which oppose each other. Real-time strategy games are What attracted > one of the more difficult genres to people to the atari games? make, since they usually require making an engine capable of handling a large number of instances with advanced AI and large-scale multiplayer. Role-playing games are very popular amongst almost all age groups depending on what the game is about. Another form of a role-playing
game is the Massive Multi-player Online Role-Playing Game. Both are highly popular due to the fact that you play as another person in an imaginative unique world. Many people find roleplaying games fun due to the fact that there is a long mysterious story that unfolds during the game and you can never expect what will happen next. The online version of the role-playing games is very different. Instead of a single player playing the game there are many thousands all over the world. These online versions aren’t usually story-based and they basically become a online simulation survival game. Arcade games, also called “button mashers”, are games descended from video game arcade machines. These games usually require little thinking, are fast-paced, and rely heavily on fast reflexes and sound effects. These games are quite popular for low-power devices, arcade machines (suprise!), and for people who want entertainment which can be started and stopped quickly (such as people people working at computers). Simulation games (such as flight simulator) are very diverse and appeal to a wide range of people, and very complicated or realistic simulations are popular among scientists and intellectuals. Simulation games are also used as training tools and blur the line between games and applications. There are other niche types, such as puzzle and card games designed to be simple entertainment for one person, simulation games (usually flight), and quirky games with innovative styles that don’t belong anywhere else. These last games tend to form their own genres if they become popular enough. Puzzle and card games are another type used among office workers, although adult women tend to enjoy them as well. Probably the best-known example of this would be Tetris, although it does have some elements of the arcade genre. Puzzle games are much easier to program than those in the action genre, but they require much more creativity from the designer. Making on of these games might be a good idea for someone who is relatively new to Game Maker but who still wants to make a good game. There are also other quirky games with innovative styles that don’t belong anywhere else. These last games tend to form their own genres if they become popular enough. Overall, video games are designed to allow the player to do things that they can’t do in real life. They also allow people to play games which would be too complicated as table games, and allow people to play classic favorites without taking turns. Before you plan out the details of your game, make sure that it appeals to it’s target audience and try to differ a bit from the genre norms. Written by bendodge
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Swearing & Internet Speech In Games Should your game contain course language/internet speech? GMT provides some advice. Some people, usually people new to Game Development, have sometimes asked whether their game should have swearing or internet speech in it. So should your game contain swearing or internet speech? Swearing Swearing such as f**k, sh*t and others similar words are present in many games today. Some popular genres where swearing can be found include: RPG, FPS and Sport games. In most dictionaries swearing is described as obscene or indecent language. This sort of language would obviously not be in children’s games which then limits the game to an older and more mature generation. It is highly known that games containing violence usually have swearing them. However swearing is offensive and can turn out to be quite pointless if the game is, for example an, RTS or Tycoon game. Internet Speech Also people have wondered whether or not to include “internet speech” such as shorthand or Leet language. Shorthand is when you use letters to create a shorter version of the word instead of typing the proper word. For example, for the word “you”, the letter “u” would be used instead to save time. Other words that could be used instead of its proper word are “r” for “are”, “cya”, for “see you”, and “sup” for “what’s up”. Usually these are used for communication online in a casual fashion. But some people have thought about using it in games. The other type of shorthand is called Leet, 31337, 1337, l33t, or Leetspeak. Leet is a type of written slang which is used on the internet to communicate quickly or so others cannot understand. Shorthand or Leet should not be used if it can be avoided. It makes the game “unprofessional”. For example, in an game where the player is talking to a NPC. If shorthand were used, it would be something like this:
“No I don’t think it is a good thing as it doesn’t really make your game any better or funny and it can probably get rid of some people from downloading or buying your game. I feel that swearing and internet speak in games largely depends on the game and it’s content.” - death-droid “In more mature games, with stylized violence, war scenes, etc, swearing is more accepted, as the target audience for such games is generally mature enough to handle it. Other categories of games, I’d suggest, don’t really warrant the need to use swearing. Internet speak should be reserved for websites, instant messaging and online games. As part of the dialogue/speech in a game, it has less of a place, but for online multi-player modes, it is acceptable.” - celebraces “This type of speech may be appropriate in everyday conversation, but it should never be used in the game narrative. In small doses, it could work for a character in a role-playing game -- but that’s risky. It might just seem like a shallow attempt at realism.” - KC LC “Internet speak is only ok if the audience you make the game for understands it. Swearing is ok as long as you make clear the game contains it. I’m all for freedom of speech so I think everyone should be able to say whatever they want, as long as it is for a good cause. (Just insulting people for the heck of it is a bad idea).” - 2D Cube “I believe that swearing would be appropriate in games that are rated for adults. As for internet speak I believe it should not be in anything not even on the internet and especially not in games because it would ruin the English language one day, meaning every one would be running around saying “lol”,”OMG”,”Rofl”,”WTF”, etc. And that would be very bad.” - Swift Curse
“hey, u herd bout tat temple tats haunted?” The NPC can be programmed to reply using shorthand words, however this would not be appropriate for a game. Also, in the real world, shorthand is never really used at all. Also, some people may not understand what some words mean, especially for Leet, which would be a problem when playing the game. One exception may be that if the game were to show someone typing on a computer, or something similar. Shorthand or maybe even Leet may be used, but make sure to keep it simple. Views on the Matter “Whether or not to swear in games depends on your target audience. If you’re making a game for a five year old child, or a children’s MMO like Runescape, then obviously no. However, if you are making a GTA game, I don’t see any problem with it.” homebrewpc
Overall If swearing were to be used in a game, it should be for a good purpose and is only recommended for higher age groups. If it were used for every piece of dialog, it would put people off. Also, it would be good to put a warning, that it contains swearing. As for internet speech, it should be avoided completely. Not only is it a sloppy way to speak but if people who are unfamiliar to internet speech plays the game they would not understand what is being said. Internet speech will give your game an unprofessional look. Written by mememe & gmjab
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Writing a Good Help File
Need help writing a help file for your new game? bendodge breaks down the important sections in a help file. Help files are a relatively small part of a game, but they are the first resource a confused player will turn for help. Help files can tell a player how to play a game, give background information, troubleshooting tips, contact information, and licensing. Your documentation should be neat and concise, but must include enough information to be helpful (thus fulfilling the purpose of a help file). There are two general methods for displaying help: you can use Game Maker’s own Game Information, or you can program your own custom room and interface. The Game Information will do the job, but I would recommend that a polished game use it’s own display method which fits with the theme of the game. This will take more time, but it allows you to do much more (such as using video clips and images.) This article will focus on the Game Information method, but most of it still applies to customized help. Most help files follow a fairly standard design. Obviously, help should start with the title of the game or program. This is usually a bit larger than the rest of the text and uses a Sans Serif font (Arial is Sans Serif , Times is Serif). If you want a really cool title, you can make an image-like logo made out of many size-1 characters. (There are programs that can do this automatically.) I recommend that you use a bold and slightly larger Sans Serif font for the section headers. You should also avoid using clashing colors on your fonts and backgrounds. Fluorescents are almost never appropriate. Next, I suggest that you put a summary of the game’s license, such as “This game is freeware and may not be sold or modified.” I’ll cover EULAs in more detail later on. A brief Table of Contents should be prominently displayed near the top. This doesn’t need to be anything fancy, just a quick guide for navigating. Here’s an example: - Introduction - Controls - Game Objective and Story - Advanced Information and Tips - Troubleshooting - System Requirements - Screen Issues - Multiplayer - EULA - Credits - Contact
Controls This section should outline very clearly and concisely the keyboard and mouse commands, as well as the basic user interface (if there is one). Two columns will make this section more readable, although some care should be taken to prevent different display sizes from wrecking the alignment. Game Objective and Story Next, you need to tell the user the objective of the game and any storyline that might accompany it. (An alternative method is placing the storyline at the very beginning of the file, but this should only be used if you have a very engaging, well-written story.) This section should be in paragraph form, and using good grammar is important. If your game relies heavily on the storyline, you might want to only reveal part of it here and unveil the rest as users proceed through the game. Advanced Information and Tips This is probably a good place to give tips for getting past tough spots, advanced controls, or advanced game features. You want to let experienced players get more fun out of the game, but you must avoid boggling novices or giving them too much secret information. Troubleshooting Now we are done with the more interesting half of the file. The rest is boring, important stuff. We’ll start with troubleshooting. I’ve divided this into three separate sections: System Requirements, Screen Issues, and Multiplayer. So it’s best to get past all this stuff as quickly as possible. Troubleshooting > System Requirements System requirements are something you’ll have to determine yourself, but some things are required for every Game Maker game: a DirectX 8 or higher compatible graphics card, Windows 2000 or higher (for GM7), and a DirectX compatible sound card. Note that games made with GM6 or previous versions won’t work on Vista; they must be recompiled with GM7 or modified with Mr. Overmar’s converter in order to run on Vista. You will need to test the game on several machines yourself in order to determine the CPU, RAM and VRAM (video memory) requirements. This section is obviously quick and to the point, but it does require significant effort on your part. Article continued on the next page.
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Writing a Good Help File (Continued) Troubleshooting > Screen Issues This next section is a bit more challenging. Screen issues are some of the most common problems associated with playing GM games, and the solutions aren’t always one-size-fits-all. There are a few fundamental causes of screen problems: color depth, resolution, video memory, and refresh rate. Obviously, the user must have a screen resolution at least equal to the game window, and Game Maker requires a color depth of 16 or 32 bits. (Note that if your game uses PNGs, you need to code something to adjust for users with 16-bit color depth, or else the alpha-blended areas will turn black.) As mentioned before, testing your game to determine the minimum memory requirements is your responsibility. Many people dislike games that change the screen resolution, and if such a game crashes, the resolution will not correct itself until a Game Maker game is run and closed again. So be sure to address this potential problem. As a general rule, you shouldn’t mess with resolution rates, at least without asking the user. You might also recommend that the user adjust his refresh rate if the game appears to flicker or refuses to start properly. The key here is to test your game and write down problems so that you can remember to address them all. Troubleshooting > Multiplayer I would recommend that multiplayer games include a section here concerning connection issues. Unfortunately, I am not well-versed in multiplayer programming and cannot provide detailed recommendations for this section. You should refer to the documentation of the online system you use (such as Reflect) for more information. End User License Agreement (EULA) Here we reach the supremely boring part of our help file: the End User License Agreement! This does not necessarily have to be in the help file, but it should be prominently shown somewhere for legal reasons. I am not an attorney, but there are a few good points to be made on the subject. First, your license needs to establish the distribution model of the game. (I’m going to assume that it’s freeware like most GM games) You need to clearly state that the games is free and may not be sold. Second, the user should agree not to modify and distribute the game. A clause about reverse-engineering (hacking) could also be included, but some people don’t mind having their games’ guts messed with. Finally, you need to establish legal immunity. This is usually done through an “as is” disclaimer that expressly denies any warranty or liability. A full sample EULA suitable for freeware games can be found in a text file included with this issue.
Disclaimer “THE LICENSE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS OR ANYONE DISTRIBUTING THE LICENSE BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE LICENSE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE LICENSE.” Credits Credit should be given where credit is due, and this is a good spot for it. You might already have the lead programmer’s or producer’s name up near the beginning of the file, but you shouldn’t neglect other people who contributed to the project. Also important is documenting the source of any third- party resources your games uses (hopefully with permission). This is another area where layout is important, since you probably want your credits to actually be read. The very end of a help file or readme is usually reserved for a copyright notice and contact information. Why you want a copyright notice is obvious, and I don’t think much needs to be said about it. In the contact area you should include an email address, website,business phone number or at least a street address where users can get support and make suggestions. It’s a last resource for frustrated users. In addition, you can benefit from asking users to report anyone distributing the game illegally (like selling it); you might be surprised at what you get. For uses who would like to report illegal distribution, as suggestion would be to have a seperate link under your contact details to take the user to a specific page where they can fill out certain information to be reported. Overall, your help file should be thorough and well-written. Making a great game and then skipping or skimping on a detail like the help file reflects poorly on the developer. Taking the extra time to pay attention to the small things (like proper testing) is definitely worthwhile in the end. The Issue 11 Resource Pack contains a Sample EULA Written by bendodge
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How not to be a n00b on the GMC
How do you want to be remembered? Follow this guide and you’ll be on your way to being remembered as mature. Many people have been annoyed by particular users at the GMC for many reasons. Those reasons may be that the user breaks rules, the user flames, the user swears, the user annoys other users or for some other reason. This guide will help you avoid being that person. Knowing and abiding by the rules This is probably the most important one. Knowing the rules and abiding by the rules. Many people at the GMC don’t like a user who breaks rules. Whether they post in the wrong forum, double posts before the time limit of 3 days, or flame others about pointless things. The first thing to avoid breaking a rule is knowing the rules which are provided here. You will find every rule on the GMC at this link, unless you’re reading this in the very far future where GM has evolved further and everyone is at the YoYo Games Forum. Anyway, knowing the rules, will make sure that you don’t break a rule that you didn’t know about, as there is no tolerance for not knowing a rule. Also, abiding by the rules will make sure you are not warned, put on Moderator Preview, or even banned for breaking a rule. Common courtesy and staying out of flame wars Common courtesy will also help you avoid being a noob. Being polite to people helps to prevent having a flame war, meaning an argument, where people are posting things about the other person, such as “Wtf? You’re a f**khead. That’s crap. Why the hell would you do that?” And things similar to that. Another way to avoid flame wars and to prevent it is just to use the report button, usually found right under each post to the left. Then once it is reported, just leave it and let a Moderator or Administration deal with it. No harm done to you. If you join the flame war, you may be blamed and be warned, even if you were trying to stop it. Knowing what you post What people hate is users trying to “teach” others about things that they partly know, or not at all. For example, if there was an argument about recreating GM with C++, and an user came up and said “What’s the point? Just make it in VBScript, because I know that, and it is easy to use VBScript” That would make the person sound really stupid, because VBScript is a scripting language used for websites, and not a programming language. This may also apply to posting in the Tutorials and Examples Forum.
Use proper language Using proper language is one of the key factors to not being a noob. People find it very annoying when people do not talk properly or when they don’t make any sense. A lot of people are tempted to swear in flame wars and many make quick shorthand comments. If on the other hand, English is not your natural language and you know you can’t speak it very well, it would be best to first check to see if there is a community in your language. If there is nothing available it may be best to use a online translator. Pointless, off-topic spam Pointless, off-topic spam is a post which has no relation to what the topic is about, and so is pointless. This is also against the rules. An example is, if a topic was discussing how to make destructible terrain and a user posted: “Buy Worms World Part from me for $5” That would be spam, and has no relation to how to create destructible terrain in GM. Don’t do that. Double posting/bumping This is the rule I see broken the most. Double posting is posting in a topic a second time right after posting. In other words, two or more consecutive posts before the time limit of 2 days. This rule is needed because if an user were requesting a sprite in the Graphics Forum and didn’t get it in 2 hours and the person double posts then, it goes right up to the top of the list of topics and will be more easily seen by people. This would be unfair to those who waited a full 3 days before posting again. Many people tend to get away with this by saying something like this: “Oops. Accident. Stupid server posted it twice” But the two times that it was posted were quite a while apart. Big signatures Signatures are a privilege. A signature is seen under every post. Everyone can make their signature however they want, to the extent of not breaking the rules. Many people tend to make their signatures too big. The size allowance of a signature is 550 pixels by 150 pixels. Many have broken this rule. Make sure you don’t make it any bigger than that. Finally there are two ways to be remembered: 1) remembered as being an idiot 2) remembered as being mature. So if you want to be remembered for good reasons, follow these basic guidelines and you will be able to avoid being a noob. Written by mememe
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The Wiki Craze
Wiki’s, they are big and they are over-popular. Some however stand for good reasons. Ever since Wikipedia took off, it seems everyone just had to start up a wiki. Every pointless game and silly website had a poorly designed Wiki attached. Even when there clearly wasn’t enough content to bother creating a wiki about it they did it just for bragging rights. And while I’m sure you will still run into many websites that have stupid and pointless wiki’s, there is one that shows a lot of promise, and has managed to start of with a pretty nice look. Game Maker Technology Wiki Trust me, when I heard it the first time I thought, “What? Why the heck would a magazine need a wiki? Here comes another crummy wiki!” Boy was I wrong! The first time I visited it, once I realized what they were doing, I understood there was a very good reason to create this wiki because it has the potential to become an amazing reference for GM users. What GM Tech has begun doing is putting all of their articles and game reviews into their wiki. Remember that one helpful article you read? Crud, what magazine was it again? Rather than download and search every magazine, now all you have to do is visit the wiki and a quick search should
pull up the results. How about the game you can’t remember the name of, but you remember it was in magazine 4? Rather than have to download the magazine again, all you have to do is make a quick visit to the wiki and there’s the game’s review and a link to the GMC topic. Now at the time of writing they still haven’t managed to enter in all of the stuff from their past issue’s, but they have made a pretty good dent in it. Even though it’s not complete, it is still an impressive amount of articles and game reviews. Once they manage to finish entering all of their past issues they will have a super amazing database of helpfully tutorials, articles, and game reviews. And since they will continue to add all of their upcoming magazines to it, it’s usefulness will only continue too grow. The GM Tech Wiki, the brainchild of gmjab, promises to be (and already is) one of the most helpfull and enjoyable GMrelated websites to come around in a long time. After this article was written, they added user comments and a rating system to the wiki. Now people can post feedback on the articles and game reviews posted there. This is showing, yet again, that this already great service is still on the rise. Link: Game Maker Technology Wiki Written by freelance writer: Elmernite
Violent Games - Why So Popular? As the distribution of more violent games increase, the author asks is this really a good thing? “Two shots to the chest, one to the head” Something once said only by police is now becoming more common amongst today’s youth. Recently the gaming market has been consumed with violent and gory games such as Halo, Grand Theft Auto, Crysis, Half Life, and Doom. Many parents are concerned as to what will become of their children playing through an endless stack of blood-spilling games and are at the same time curious as to why they are attracted to such games so strongly. Studies A recent study conducted by Cheryl K. Olson of Massachusetts General Hospital’s analyzed 1,254 middle school students from a variety of backgrounds and ethnic groups. Out of 94% of those studied three-quarters of the boys and more than a quarter of the girls had played video games a lot in the past 6 months. The other 6% claimed not to have played video games at all in the past six months. After a brief interview with them, Cheryl K. Olson concluded that most of the kids play these games to rid themselves of violent feelings towards others.
Another study’s research by Jessica Nicoll & Kevin M. Kieffer has found that even playing a violent game for under 10 minutes can increase a person’s aggressiveness. It was also found that children who play these violent games had more arguments with authority figures and also performed poorly at school. Why do people play them? From my own “field” research, I have found that a strong reason why today’s youth are so pulled to these games is because they can experience things that they normally can not get away with. And it also fascinates them to see just how far they can go with sawing off a victim’s head and then doing other various activities with the remaining body and everything in it. So the answer is simple, violent video games are popular because the events taking place stimulate the mind, and the situations given to a player are re-accessible and re-doable as many times as the player wishes, which in reality, could never happen. However this comes at a cost of a mind being molded to enjoy ever more violent games. Written by keysle
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ARTICLES
Snow Moon vs 64 Digits
Which is your favourite site to use? Timoi compares both Snow Moon and 64Digits. With features such as uploading, downloading, file management, blogs, and example showcasing, comparisons of the new website ‘Snow Moon’ to the more established ‘64Digits’ are inevitable, but how do they really compare? With no previous experience of either site, I decided to find out... 64Digits was first made by two friends during sleepovers and released in April 2005 as a simple filehoster, later blogs were added along with a brand new (and admittedly rather buggy) version of the site. It is now the one of the biggest unofficial Game Maker communities with a massive database of completed games, work in progress games, and examples. Snow Moon is the new kid on the block going through the same stages as 64Digits once did with a new version coming out and a growing community. They say first impressions are the most important, so it’s a pity that my first visit to 64Digits had me confronted with what appeared to be a load of staff infighting and blog postings suggesting a mass leaving of users – not a good start. Granted, this did appear to be cleared up within 24hrs, but it left me feeling slightly uneasy. The next thing that struck me was how clean and clear the interface was, only the necessary information is shown and you can easily get a feel for things in no time at all. The layout and style of Snow Moon is very similar with a permanent User CP (Control Panel) sidebar on all pages that is just as easy to navigate. One problem is that the sidebar is quite wide and the main content regularly feels squashed up, and the whole website is narrow, with a lot of seemingly wasted space. The uploading process is simple and straight forward on both sites, the neat file managers make attaching screenshots and preview images to a game a breeze. A great idea on behalf of 64Digits is the Project Manager which, allows easy organisation of any game you’re currently involved in, though it does seem they’ve missed an area by not allowing people to comment on them. However I must warn that 64Digits has suffered from a couple of rather bad bouts of downtime recently, so I wouldn’t recommend using it as your sole uploader. From a players point of view, 64Digits has a great range of games, with more than enough to keep you entertained. Finding the best games is also simple with a helpful filter mechanism to sort by rating, downloads, comments and various other criteria. Again Snow Moon suffers from a lack of content, less than 15 completed games at the time of writing, but it should be remembered this is likely to change as the site gets more members. It’s good to see both sites having WIP (Work In Progress) sections but because feedback is restricted to small comment boxes with no real structure, any remarks are generally small and not always massively helpful to the developer. A proper review system like that on YYG would be a great improvement. Blogging is the main outlet for the community at 64Digits and it creates very active users, many blogs even getting a total of
over 10,000 hits. 64Digits does a good job of making you always feeling connected, active user lists, favourite user lists, and badges add to the sense of community. Snow Moon has all these features too, with currently less than 100 members it can feel a bit empty at times, but the members are generally friendly and fun. It also includes a nifty dynamic active user list that updates in real-time. During my time at 64Digits I only came across ‘flaming’ or abusive comments a couple of times, which is only to be expected on any website this big but the overall atmosphere was cheerful and welcoming. In summary both of these sites offer a totally free, top quality service, and there is little to choose between them. As it stands 64 Digits is probably the better of the two as it’s in a more polished state and is packed full of content. Snow Moon still has improvements to be made. Keeping that in mind, if it manages to stave off the downtime problems that have affected 64Digits, Snow Moon will no doubt grow as more users start uploading there and it becomes a well known site. User opinions “You’ll never hear someone say, “Find a different host!” when you distribute your projects with 64Digits. It’s not the website itself that makes it what it has become today, but the people who use it daily. Some days it could be bad, other times it could be good. If you want a place where you can upload your games and blog about almost anything, 64Digits is the place for you.” - Dfortun81 (on 64Digits) “64D is a wonderful place. Sure, we have our ups and downs, but that’s just fun! We’re an easy to navigate source of incomparable coding expertise and examples, but we’re much more than that, so much more. I mean, look at the blogs, they’re interesting, many are funny, I even wrote a theme tune. So yeah, we’re more than just GM, we’re a community, and a damn good one at that.” - Phazon Yoshi (on 64 Digits) “The upload works well enough and the downloading is great, no problems so far. The site is pretty much constantly being worked on, so all the problems should be resolved pretty soon. After it’s been around a bit longer and had time to grow a bit more and get some kinks worked out, it’ll be great. And the community is awesome.” - Rusky (on Snow Moon) “Ever since I joined, I’ve seen the progress it has gone through, and I knew it was heading in a good direction. It’s user friendliness, layout, and speed are very nice and I encourage anyone to join this growing community. Although it may not be as popular as 64 Digits, someday, I’m sure that it will surpass it.” - Brod (on Snow Moon) Written by Timoi
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ARTICLES
YoYo Games, A Year In Power
What has YoYo Games done in the past year? Medieval looks back to see what they have done. If you were a GM user before the the anticipated release of Game Maker 7 you’ll remember when GM was only being developed by one person, Mark Overmars. But times have changed, because of Mark’s limited free time and the fact that he is only one person that is the developer of a very popular program, a new and dedicated team was needed to insure the future of GM. People don’t like change, and when this happened it was no exception. When the announcement was made many users were angry, but whether they have got used to it or not, YoYo Games is here to stay. You may not realise but YoYo Games has been in power for approximately a year now and I’m quite sure you’ll want a recap of what they’ve been doing, so without further ado, here is the one year history of YoYo Games in power. The first couple of months was a time of struggle for both Mark and YoYo Games as the transition was being made. Mark was finishing up GM 7, while other programmers were working away coding the new site. This would be the new GM site featuring a simply gray-green-yellow layout that is easy on the eyes. Soon after the announcement, GM 7 was fully released, along with the new registration system. In order to keep your key you had to enter it on the YoYo Games main site and it would give you a new upgrade key. This process was quite complicated for some users, and many had problems, whilst others couldn’t use their fake or illegal keys. Also new was the switch from registered GM and unregistered GM to Pro and Lite edition which seemed quite pointless to users. With the focus off of GM 7, YoYo Games officially released the
first beta of the website which gave a warm welcome to GM users. On this new site you could transfer your GMC account onto YoYo Games. Once again, this was troublesome for some users. Aside from that, the new site was quite nice, allowing you to upload your game, select a genre to put it in, and add three or more screenshots. Users could then rate your game using a six star system, along with posting comments and reviews of a game. After the release of Beta 1 of YoYo Games site, Beta 2 was released featuring a new featured called ‘instant play’. This allowed users to play the game online without downloading it. Sept 6th - Seemed no information would be released on the future of GM development yet informarion was published on the YoYo Games glog. With this came the news of four headlines - Game Maker for the Mac, rewriting the runner into C++, more resources, and an updater. Though controversial on whether this would actually increase the speed of GM, it was good news that something was getting done. Following this news came the announcement that GM was being converted to be able to run on iMacs. Once again the actions of YoYo Games was debatable, is this really a smart move? Though, it seemed to me that whatever YoYo Games is doing or plans on doing, you can expect people to complain and not be grateful that they at least have GM. On track, if you have read issue 10 you can find quite a fewuser opinions on the development of GM on Macs. The resource section is nothing major, just YoYo Games getting people to make resources for GM. And finally, YoYo Games has hired a full-time Delphi programmer to release frequent updates for GM. Written by Medieval
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User Opinion: What Attracted you to GM? Everyone uses Game Maker for a reason, so Gamez93 asked a few people why they like Game Maker. Game Maker is a tool that is used by many. We all came to know and love this software in many different ways, so we asked some members from the GMC \ why they choose the Game Maker software. mog13 “The thing that attracted me to Game Maker, was the ease with which you can immerse yourself into a programming community and language. It offers simple solutions to making games which can then be developed further, until you actually learn an easy programming language. This makes a great stepping stone onto further programming education.” -Oakleaf“The easiness. I read about it back in 2004 in a computer magazine that had mentioned many different examples of game making software. At first I tried Adventure Game Studio (or AGS), and understood nothing. Then I tried GM, tried messing around with it and then checked some tutorials. At that time I didn’t even think about registering it, but when I had got used to it I thought I should register. It was so cheap. (Well, I didn’t pay for it, my father did...) Even now when I have used GM for over three years I keep finding new things in it, and nowadays the old D&D is harder than coding...” LAR Games “Well, I think the thing that attracted me to Game Maker the most, was the fact I could create something beautiful with enough effort and hard work. I knew there was no way I could create a game like Halo, or Half life, but I still wanted to try something like this. Besides, the drag and drop aspect of it was pretty appealing since I knew nothing about programming languages. Before I got into Game Maker, I barely even knew how to use a computer. Shortly after, I was learning things about computers I had never even imagined I would know before. Without that curiosity I had about how games were made, and without the motivation I had for trying to improve my skills, I probably wouldn’t even be a graphics artist right now. Game Maker is what let me discover what I liked to do. Anyway, what appeals to most people about Game Maker, is that you can create games without learning how to code. And that’s what attracted me to it as well.” Elmernite “The thing that attracted me to GM the most was the fact that it did what it said. I don’t know how many other “easy” game creation tools can say that (more than one of them were DOS game creators). None of them where truly easy or they restricted you game to a certain type (e.g. an RPG creator). When I first got GM, I opened up one of the example games and I understood what was going on. It had flexibility and easy of use. That’s what attracted me to GM and that’s why I’m still using it!”
Anaglyph Gaming “I had the program recommended to me by a friend when I had brought up a need for game development tools in a creative writing class. After trying it, what kept me using the program were the easily accessed tutorials and the easy-to-learn D&D system, which made otherwise difficult ambitions much easier to digest. As I progressed in my knowledge of the program, I got my own team together, which has kept me using it ever since.” Coffee “Well to be honest, I’m not the one who found Game Maker, it was my Dad. One day my Dad showed me a program called Game Maker, thinking that I may like it since I said before that I would love to make games. So I checked it out and thought it was pretty cool, and that it would take a while to learn. Well, it did take a while, lol. It’s been over 2 years now that I’ve been using Game Maker, and I have to say, it’s been very easy to use, and it’s very flexible and powerful.” phubans “Ever since I was about six years old I have been drawing and writing down my ideas for games. I’ve made a lot of pen & paper dice games in my childhood and a lot of adventure-style RPGs that could be played without dice. When it came to computers, I always took the opportunity to edit a game, whether it was creating a map using a level editor or hacking a ROM to change the sprites and text. But prior to Game Maker the only software I used specifically for game creation was a program called Adventure Games Studio, although I didn’t really stay with it for very long once I discovered GM. GM seemed to be more open-ended and versatile for creating any kind of game I could think of. The reason I got into GM in the first place was simply because always wanted to be able to make my own games and this seemed like the right software to do it. The interface wasn’t very imposing at all; in fact, in just a few hours the basic groundwork of a game could be created using GM’s Drag & Drop interface. I’m pretty satisfied with GM; it’s perfect for what I need it for and it has brought me closer to realizing my dream of making games.” Jesper “Hey everyone. When I first looked at Game Maker, there wasn’t really something specific about Game Maker that attracted me to it. I just read about it in a PC magazine and thought I should try it out. I wasn’t really good at English back then so I didn’t understand a thing about the program and I just really started using it a year later. I never used any game creating programs besides Game Maker, and I don’t intend to do so either. After some time using it, I registered because I thought it would give me some more possibilities, but it actually wasn’t until a year or two later when I started to do some more advanced programming. I’ve been using Game Maker since 4.3 or something, and still enjoy it as much (or possibly even more) as I did back then.”
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GM DEV
ESA’s Music Dev Recommendations ESA checks out popular music formats and software to make some recommendations Music is a necessary element of nearly every game. Game developers may choose to do the music themselves, or they may request music from people experienced in that field. There are many different ways to make original and satisfying music for a game of any genre. Formats are an important part of deciding what music to have. The most common would probably be mp3, because of its desirable filesize compression. Module (chiptunes) and MIDI are also very popular file formats. MIDI Pros Very small file size, even for songs over a minute long. There is also a wide variety of instruments to choose from when making a MIDI song. Cons They all begin to sound the same after a while. Even though MIDI is an easy format to get used too, the music can begin to sound repetitive. MP3 Pros You can have high-quality music without having file sizes that can affect the game’s overall size too much. Cons Keeping the song/loop short is important. The filesize can quickly become too large to use, so paying close attention to the length is necessary. MOD Pros Like MIDI, modules have very low filesizes. They also give games a very “retro” feeling because of the heavy use of modules in classic games like Tetris. Cons Although there are many fans of modules (chiptunes), there are also people many people who do not like its unique sound at all. Software FruityLoops | www.flstudio.com
A large program that can be utilized to make many different types of music. Built-in instruments and effects help you get the sound you want, and there are small tools like vocoders that can assist in making sound effects as well. Pros Many plug-ins, instruments, and effects to choose from. You can come up with a variety of different sounds with this program. You can also render the songs/loops you make into many different formats such as MIDI, mp3, and wav. You can adjust the quality of the final song as well. Cons You have to pay $100 to unlock the full version. The demo is free, and you can use it as long as you want, however you cannot save your projects to edit them later.
Acid | www.acidplanet.com
Pros You can add up to 10 channels to choose where you want which sounds to play. Cons Like FruityLoops, the demo is free. You again have to purchase the full version if you want to publish your songs in high quality, however you can actually save your projects, unlike FruitLoops. The demo can also only export in wma format, but there are many reliable converters available on the internet.
Audacity | audacity.sourceforge.net
Not so much meant for making music, Audacity is a program of importance for sound effects. You can trim sounds, reduce the filesize, and remove unwanted noise from your recordings. Pros Taking out any static or unwanted noise is very easy to do with Audacity. Trimming and shortening sounds are easy to do because of the accuracy of this task with Audacity. Cons This program is not really meant for making music. Anvil Studio | www.anvilstudio.com
This is definitely one of the most popular MIDI-making programs on the internet. It is free, and this is probably one of the many reasons that make it desirable to game-makers. Pros Many instruments and sounds to choose from. Cons Knowledge of music (ie. Being able to read sheet music) is very important to have. Tips • Make loops in FruityLoops then arrange them in Acid. • AnvilStudio has many sound effects to choose from. • “Noise Removal” in Audacity takes away unwanted static. Sound Effects A game is always more interesting when it has sound effects to support it. There are many resources for sound effects on the internet, but one of the most common sites where sound effects are found is freesound.iua.upf.edu, otherwise known as “The Freesound Project.” It is a site where users upload their own sounds, and most of them are real-life recordings. Downloading these can save time. It is important to credit the creator of the sound, as the site is under a creative commons license. This guide has shown you great free resources for making music and sounds for your games. Tutorials and FAQs are available on the listed sites, but the best way to learn is to actually try the different programs out for yourself. Written by ESA
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GM DEV
Simplifying A Level Editor
TheMagnitude provides a great little tip on simplifying a level editor for your games. A very nice feature a game can have is it’s own level editor, which not only extends the possiblilities for the gamer, but also gives the game a more dynamic and customizable feel. Making a game customizable brings the player closer to the game and makes them feel part of the game when they play it. There are many ways to customize your game but the only one I am going to write about in this article is how to build and implement a successful level editor. What you will get out of this article is an extended knowledge of how to code a level editor, save a level, load a level, and everything needed to enable the player to create his/her fully functional quality 2D levels. Theory: infinite levels=infinite playing time, more objects and themes means more varied levels, transferring levels via the internet means downloadable levels. What I’ll do first is run through the theory and application of a level editor, and then I’ll expose you to some hardcore code to get you started. The more levels there are to a game the longer it’s going to be played, in theory... so, also in theory, if the user can build their own levels and potentially create an infinite number of levels, then theoretically the player will play your game an infinite number of times before getting bored. In theory this sounds like you’ve struck gold but this isn’t the case, any game you play will get boring, and you’ll move onto the next best thing. Which means you’ve got to keep the player amused for as long as possible. This is done by creating a level editor that allows players to create fully functional quality levels. Also the ability to save and load levels for replay and re-edit later is a must for any game developer. But just being able to save and load levels doesn’t mean that the level editor will be good, the level editor must have a vast database of actual in-game objects and backgrounds (in this case we’re going to use tiles). Having a lot of objects to choose from gives the user more options. If a level only had 3 objects: player, enemy, and wall, it wouldn’t be as fun as a level with 4 objects: player, enemy1, enemy2, wall and so on and so fourth. So the level editor should have a lot of objects. Now, here’s how we’re going to do it. What we’re not going to do is add another object for each object we want to include in the level editor, we’re going to have one object that will mimic all other objects called: “obj_le_object”, le stands for level editor. We only need to program one object (to display the objects) in the level editor and if we want to make it look like a different object all we do is change it’s sprite to the corresponding object’s sprite. For the saving and loading part, that’s easier than you might well think it to be. All you do is save a string to a file, but that string is actually GML which tells the objects where to be placed when executed, and for the loading part, just execute the string. Simple as.
Here are some snippets of code that are taken from the example included with this article: To add an object:
var i; i=show_menu(“Ball|Wall”,-1); // show menu with two items. if i=-1 exit; // check if user selected a menu item. switch (i) { case 0: (instance_create(100,100,obj_le_object)). object=obj_circle; // create a circle break; case 1: (instance_create(100,100,obj_le_object)). object=obj_square; // create square break; // to add a new object just carry on the pattern. //case 2: //(instance_create(100,100,obj_le_object)). object=obj_x; //break; }
With each instance of obj_le_object (hey I’ve just realised that sounds french) it has a local variable: “object” set to the object id of the object that it mimics, so it can assign the sprite a frame later to appear as if it’s that object To save:
var str,i; str=””; with (obj_le_object) { // create a string that, when executed will add the REAL object at the current place on screen str+=”instance_create(“+string(x)+”,”+string(y)+ ”,”+string(object)+”);”; } i=file_text_open_write(“save.lev”); // open file “save.lev” for writing file_text_write_string(i,str); // save the string file_text_close(i); // close the file
To load:
var i; i=file_text_open_read(“save.lev”); // open “save. lev” for reading s=file_text_read_string(i); // read the string execute_string(s); // execute the string file_text_close(i); // close the file
This concludes the Simplifying A Level Editor article. You are encouraged to view the example with this issue to see the scripts in action. Hopefully this article has given you an idea on how to simplify a level editor. View the Level Editor example supplied with this issue Written by TheMagnitude
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GM DEV
Simple Game Calculations
Part 1 of aviraldg’s game calculation article shows us simple ways to calculate a ball bouncing and rolling Recently, I’ve noticed ‘a number of’ Breakout and Mario clones (rather common, aren’t they?) with the ball bouncing straight up on hitting the paddle and Mario getting stuck in the wall. So this article will teach you how to do some commonly asked questions in math. Ball Bouncing In a breakout game we want the ball to bounce off the paddle realistically. You’d probably know this already, but in GM, 0° is towards the right-hand side and runs anti-clockwise to 360°.
In GML there are two ways this calculation could be written: newdirection=90+(90point_direction(other.x,other.y,x,y))
or it could be written this way: newdirection=180point_direction(other.x,other.y,x,y)
The above code should be placed in the collision event of the ball with the paddle. Ball Rolling Well , here’s the situation ... we’ve got a football game. (football as in soccer because in Europe and Asia it’s called football. In the US it’s called soccer.) The major part of any football game is the ball (common sense really ) and it must look realistic to the user.
Fig 2-1: Animated rotating ball
Fig 1-1: Angles in GM
I’m expecting that you know your algebra and your equations, so let’s get down to the diagram that we shall actually build our formula on.
The above ‘animation strip’ would look like a rotating ball when animated at 30 frames per second.All we need to do is to make it’s animation speed match it’s motion speed and make it face the direction of motion.(Sorry , this only works for Registered/ Pro users). The following code should be used in the step event of the ball. image_angle=direction image_speed=speed/image_number
This concludes the first part of the article. Hopefully it has provided two easy answers to two very common questions. Look forward to the next part of “Simple Game Calculations”. Written by freelance writer: aviraldg
Example Quick Look
Fig 1-2: Ball Bouncing
You might notice a few things in the above diagram: • The angle formed from the paddle’s origin to the ball (origin) is approximately 45° • The new direction = 90 + ( 90 - olddirection from paddle to ball)
Making environment effects can be challenging. Luckily there are quite a few examples out there that people can work from. This, Rain & Snow example by Giorgio for GM7 Lite is helpful. However to many newer users, this example may be confusing. This example mostly uses GML but does include a little bit of D&D. The rain effect is not realistic as far as drop size and the speed at which the rain falls. On the other hand, the snow example looks much more realistic. There is unnecessary code and objects in this example that may make learning from this example hard. Finally I could see a lot of work went into the presentation of this example.
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Attaching Objects to Other Objects Want to know how to attach objects together? ShaX provides some help in doing so. At one time or another we have all wanted to attach objects to another objects, whether it be for a turret or an object your player is holding. This article describes how to accurately attach, rotate and move one object as if it were attached to another object. For example, a turret that is placed on the side of a spaceship. This is especially useful if the object has a rotation independent of it’s parent object, or is a destructible extension. First, we have simple ship and turret graphics.
The bottom turret’s coordinates (that uses green lines was) measured using X and Y offsets. It may be simpler if the parent object does not rotate but, if the parent object turns, both X and Y will change in a strange manner that makes it hard to recalculate. However, the top turret uses polar coordinates; as we can see, the distance from the origin (r) and the angle of rotation (ө) are both easily measured. GML can very easily find the polar coordinates for two points using point_direction() and point_distance(). The following code would go in the ‘Create’ event of the turret. Now we have to decide where on the ship the turret(s) are going to be attached. In the following wireframe you can see the green circles indicating where I want to turrets to be attached:
r=point_distance(ship.x,ship.y,x,y); theta=point_direction(ship.x,ship.y,x,y);
Now that we have the polar coordinates stored, the ship can freely rotate and we can keep the turret in the proper place on the ship. For example, in the step event of the turret, we would put the following code. x=ship.x+lengthdir_x(r,theta+ship.image_angle); y=ship.y+lengthdir_y(r,theta+ship.image_angle);
Remember, if the ship gets destroyed and the turrets try to adjust to the ship’s rotation, you’ll get errors because the ship doesn’t exist. This is why it is best for the turrets to be destroyed if the ship gets destroyed, or change the code in the turret’s step event to check if there is a ship. Now some math. First, we need to make sure the origins of our graphics are at the logical center, so that when they rotate they don’t spin awkwardly. The turret’s center would be at the center of it’s spherical base, not the center of the image. For the sake of simplicity, we’re going to convert the offset of the turrets into polar coordinates. This mean that instead of being an (X,Y) value, the coordinate is going to be a (r,ө) value. The r stands for radius: the distance from the parent object’s origin. ө is the direction from the origin of the parent object. Here is another illustration to show you what I mean.
The possibilities for attaching objects to each other are endless and can be an efficient way to save processing power every step. Written by freelance writer: ShaX
Write for GMTM
Be a freelance writer for the Game Maker Technology magazine! Writing for GMTM allows you to have your work in the magazine and to gain rewards. For more information, checkout the forum.
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Manipulating a String
Want to do more with strings then Game Maker can do? Rixeno provides new scripts. If you have ever read the GM help file and checked the string handling functions, some of you might be thinking that this is great, and some of you might be wondering if there can be more. Well, the answer to both is simply yes. By using GM’s already built-in string handling functions, you can manipulate a string in almost any way possible, but, like everything, it needs some time. Here are some handy scripts that can help you along the road of string manipulation.
Encrypt/Decrypt a string There are so many topics on scripts to encrypt and decrypt a string. This is a very simple, yet very effective, script that only requires a string and a number. The number will change the ASCII value of every character. If you put the number high enough, it will be all black, or question marks, and once you set the negative value of the encryption number, you get the decrypted version of the string
Reverse a string This takes a string that you assign and reverses it. For example, “GMTech” reversed will equal “hceTMG”. //string_reverse //Takes a string and reverses it //Argument(s): //argument0 = string //Returns: The reveresed string
//string_encrypt //This script encrypts/decrypts a string using the numerical value //Ex: Encrypt level 5 // Decrypt level (-5) //Argument(s): //argument0 = string //argument1 = encryptic value (number) //Returns: The encrypted/decrypted string //Written by Rixeno
var str_length,str_new,i1,i2,str_char; str_length=string_length(argument0); str_new=””; i1=str_length; i2=1; repeat(str_length) { str_char=string_char_at(argument0,i1); str_new=string_insert(str_char,str_new,i2); i1-=1; i2+=1; } return string(str_new);
var str_length,str_new,str_char,str_crypt, str_number,i1; str_length=string_length(argument0) str_new=””; i1=1; repeat (str_length) { str_char=string_char_at(argument0,i1) str_crypt=real(ord(str_char)+argument1) str_new=string_insert(chr(str_crypt),str_new,i1) i1+=1; } return string(str_new);
Randomize a string By taking every character in the string and putting it in a random position, you randomize it. Randomizing has many possibilities and it increases with the size of the string. //string_randomize //This script takes a string and places the characters at random positions //Argument(s): //argument0 = string //Returns: The randomized string var str_length,str_new,str_char,i1; str_length=string_length(argument0) str_new=””; i1=1; repeat (str_length) { str_char=string_char_at(argument0,i1); str_new=string_insert(str_char,str_new,random( str_length)); i1+=1; } return string(str_new);
Written by freelance writer: Rixeno
Example Quick Look
Aviraldg’s Tooltip example is quite different to many other examples due to it’s method. In many tooltip examples the cursor object will check the object under it to see if there is a tooltip available to display. This example does it in a different way. The object checks if the cursor is over itself then the object executes a ‘appear’ script to make the tooltip appear. However the method this example uses could cause many speed issues in the future. The reason for this is because each object creates its own tooltip object. In the future this could mean having an extra 100 objects that are just tooltips which Game Maker needs to keep track of. Also the tooltip’s method of fading is slow, and the creator has mention this in the scripts. This example does do what it is meant to do, but it could do it much better.
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Tutorial: Select Instances
One of the first problems to come up when building an RTS is selection. This tutorial provides some help. In an RTS game especially you particularly want to be able to select a number of instances. To do so we need two objects - the controller and the object that should be selectable. Actually, all we need is the selectable object itself, but for visual drawings we need another since it would be a stupid thing to let several instances draw the same lines. The non-selectable object, or controller as I will call it, needs to initialize three variables: global.start_x = 0; global.start_y = 0; draw = false;
This is for the square which the object is meant to draw, but it will also be used by the selectable objects and that’s why we make the position variables global. In the draw event goes this: draw_set_color(c_red); if (draw==true) { draw_rectangle(global.start_x,global. start_y,mouse_x,mouse_y,true); }
The rectangle is a visualization of the area that will be selected. It starts where the mouse was first pressed and ends where it was released. It disappears immediately thereafter, by the way. Draw is the variable that fixes that, because when the left button is released it is set to false. In the global left pressed we have this code: global.start_x = mouse_x; global.start_y = mouse_y; draw = true;
That’s actually everything that’s in the controller. The rest is done from the selectable object. It has a sprite with two sub images, one when the object is selected and one when it is unselected. So I simply set it in the step event: if (selected == true) { image_single = 1; } else { image_single = 0; }
The variable selected is local as you can see, which enables me to treat each instance as an individual. I initialize it, and image_ single in the create event: image_single = 0; selected = false;
And now the only event not yet described is by the far most important: global left released. We have this event in the controller as well, but it is in this object that the entire selection system is done; having each individual figure out for itself whether or not it is selected is the best solution.
if ((x<mouse_x) && (y<mouse_y) && (x>global. start_x) && (y>global.start_y)) { selected = true; } else { selected = false; }
We are now using the global positions that were set as the mouse button was pressed, and compare it to the current mouse position. This is exactly what we do when we draw, so if you really want to understand what area we create you should check it out visually in the example. The only problem with the code is that is assumes certain situations - that the user marked a square from the left-top corner to the down-right corner. The truth is that there are more such as if the user did the reverse. To cover up all of the four possibilities the code needs to be altered: if ((x<mouse_x) && (y<mouse_y) && (x>global.start_x) && (y>global.start_y)) { selected = true; } else { selected = false; } if (selected == false) { if ((x>mouse_x) && (y>mouse_y) && (x<global.start_x) && (y<global.start_y)) { selected = true; } else { selected = false; } } if (selected == false) { if ((x>mouse_x) && (y<mouse_y) && (x<global.start_x) && (y>global.start_y)) { selected = true; } else { selected = false;} } if (selected == false) { if ((x<mouse_x) && (y>mouse_y) && (x>global.start_x) && (y<global.start_y)) { selected = true; } else { selected = false;} }
As you can see I added one line: if (selected == false) to check for each possibility. I had to do this or the else condition would be applied every time and selected would undoubtedly be set to false. To make the object perform only when selected make them perform only to the condition when selected is set to true. If selected==true { ... I hope you understand. Written by Calle Ekdahl | Provided by: gmtutorials.com
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Tutorial: Strafing
Almost every First Person Shooter game has strafing. So how can you implement strafing into your game? I saw a question on this a little while ago and I thought that I’d write a little about it. For those who don’t know, strafing is when you move sideways. This is common in FPS-view games and also in top-down view games. Look at my example, and imagine that the arrow is in fact a soldier. We steer with the mouse, but we do not want to have to change direction entirely just to pass an object or similar and that’s when we use this. Anyhow, the problem from a programmer point of view is that we don’t know what position is to the left/right of us, and therefore do not know how to change our position in order to make the character strafe. My movement for this example is direction orientated, so all I have to do, therefore, is a little alternation. First, look at the code, and then I’ll explain. Step Event:
dir = point_direction(x,y,mouse_x,mouse_y); image_angle = dir; if keyboard_check(ord(‘A’)) { x -= lengthdir_x(4, dir-90);y -= lengthdir_y(4,dir-90);} if keyboard_check(ord(‘D’)) { x -=lengthdir_x(4, dir+90);y -= lengthdir_y(4,dir+90);}
if keyboard_check(ord(‘S’)) { x -= lengthdir_x( 4,dir); y -= lengthdir_y(4,dir);} if keyboard_check(ord(‘W’)) { x += lengthdir_x( 4,dir);y += lengthdir_y(4,dir);}
dir is the direction between the object (the center of the object, because of my sprite origin), and therefore when I move forward I want to go to some point in dir direction and x step. This can be calculated using the lengthdir functions, which is actually trigonometry. Look at the last piece of code, when “W” is pressed. There I first assign x the value of x+4 in the given direction dir. In “S” I do the reverse where I have -4 instead of 4. If I want to strafe I will want to use the same speed, but a different direction - since we do not want to walk towards the mouse any longer. Imagine a cross with the four directions where we are going up. If we want to strafe sideways then we want the directions on either one or the other side. 360/4 is 90, and therefore we know that is the difference between the angles and that’s how we can’t calculate the angle with either dir+90 or dir-90 ...
Tutorial: Mirror a Room
Written by Calle Ekdahl | Provided by: gmtutorials.com
Want to know how to flip everything upside down? Calle will provide a way to do so. This is a simple tutorial that turns all objects over to the other side of the screen. Mirroring a room can particularly be used as a visual effect in games of all kinds, whether it is a side-scrolling shooter or a platformer. It can even be used in gameplay for some objects. The user then has to adapt himself to the new conditions, which is always interesting. As you can see there are only two objects in my example, but this solution works for an infinite number of objects. The only thing that limits it is the speed, but as this is only done once it should be okay. First of all, we need to make an index of which objects we want to mirror, as we probably won’t want to affect all objects in a real game. Therefore we make an index like this: mirror_index[0] = obj1; mirror_index[1] = obj2; mirror_index[2] = 0;
Note that the last one should be assigned as zero. You should always end your index with a zero as this represents the end. Also note that if you wanted to affect all of the objects you don’t need to create this index. Instead, simply use “all” in the following code: for(i=0; mirror_index[i] != 0; i+=1) { with(mirror_index[i]) y = (room_height-sprite_height)-y;}
I placed this code in the creation event, as it was part of the
initialisation. The mirroring code I placed in the space release event, but it could of course be placed anywhere you like to create the effect. And what do I do? Well, first of all I use the “for” statement to loop through my index. ! is a binary operator that turn 1 into 0 and 0 into 1; therefore what my expression says “if mirror_index[i] is not equal to zero - then go on”, and I can do this because I have defined the end of the index with a zero. The next line of code will change the position of the objects in the index and this is the interesting part: with(mirror_index[i]) y = (room_height-sprite_height)-y;
The “with” statement means that what is to follow will be executed for the specified object. Since as I defined mirror_index with the id of the objects, it’s like saying with(obj1) or with(obj2). And then all variables that follow will use the id of the associated object. The formula states that y is assigned the value (room_heightsprite_height)-y and it assumes that the origin of the sprites of all the involved objects is set to (0,0). Therefore I take room_ height-sprite_height, but if you, for example, have the origin set to the middle then you should use room_height-sprite_ height/2. Written by Calle Ekdahl | Provided by: gmtutorials.com
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Interview With: Dr. Best - U3D 2.0
Dr. Best is the creator of Ultimate 3D. GMTECH goes in and interviews Dr. Best about his great creation. GMT: Many people know you as the creator of Ultimate 3D but tell us more about yourself? When did you find GM? What are your goals? DRB: “My actual name is Christoph Peters, I am seventeen years old and I live in the German city Cologne. Dr. Best is just a nickname, which derives from a German manufacturer of tooth brushes. I found Game Maker when I was twelve and really liked it at this time. At first I used it to make some Pong, Space Invader and Moorhen Jagged clones. This way Game Maker’s GML became the first programming language I actually worked with. At this time Game Maker 5.0 got released, which did not have any 3D functionalities. After a while I found out about Gadget 3D, an attempt to use 2D shapes to create simple 3D graphics (like those of Doom 2). The sudden realization of the fact that all 3D graphics just project a 3D world into a 2D plane amazed me and this was the origin of my strong interest in the development of 3D graphics. I started of by modifying and extending Gadget 3D and actually had some nice results with this, but of course it still looked awfully bad compared to any commercial 3D game and for this reason I decided to learn C++. After about four months of learning C++ I started programming the very first version of Ultimate 3D. My original aim was to create something that would make the creation of simple 3D games as easy as the creation of 2D games. At this time the only way to get good 3D graphics with Game Maker (5.3) was Xception’s Xtreme 3D, which was not very popular due to its complicated use. For this reason the very first version of Ultimate 3D, which was released on first of October 2004, got a lot of positive feedback. This motivated me to continue the development. Ultimate 3D became my biggest and despite some small or discontinued works also my only project. And of course I learned a lot by developing it and by reading additional books and papers. After I had released Ultimate 3D 1.31, the development of Ultimate 3D was on the hold for a couple of month, because I wanted to develop a (now discontinued) game. The development of this game showed me the limits of Ultimate 3D and I learned many things in this time. Therefore I decided to create a new version of Ultimate 3D, with many basically new features. In the end this new version, which got the name Ultimate 2.0 after a while, became a complete rewrite, which could not be compared to the old versions in terms of complexity. The complete development (until the RC version) took two years. Ultimate 3D has become very important for me. It is my biggest creative work and it has hundreds of users. Despite it is a solid base for all of my projects. Currently my goal is mostly to make it become a more complete product, a complete solution for 3D game development. It is surely still quite a long way towards this goal.”
GMT: So where did Ultimate 3D start? How has it changed since you first began? DRB: “Ultimate 3D started with the dream of giving people the possibility to make good 3D games with Game Maker. With the release of Game Maker 6.0 this original aim became a bit void, since simple 3D functionality was built into this version. Although Ultimate 3D was still easier and faster it lost its place as only solution (despite Xtreme 3D). Anyway I just continued developing Ultimate 3D. It had its fans and there were some promising projects, which really could use any feature I added. Since the very first version it has changed strongly. Ultimate 3D 2.0 can not be compared to any of the old versions. Almost all features of the old versions are part of the novice section of Ultimate 3D. Those are just the tip of the iceberg. Ultimate 3D is now on its way to become a 3D engine of professional quality. Of course its full power can not be utilized through Game Maker, but its the best thing you can get if you do not want to give up on Game Maker.” GMT: Ultimate 3D 2.0 has now been released, has the development and final product gone to plan? DRB: “The final product definitely is what it was supposed to be and I am absolutely confident with it. In some points it is even better. There are some features now that were not planed in the beginning and the internal architecture has been completely redesigned and is a lot more fail save and flexible now. Basically this is why the development has not worked as planed. The list of features I decided to add became longer and longer while I had been working on it. After about four month of development most of the features I originally wanted to implement had been implemented, but the complexity of the product had become so high that the old illconceived architecture became too unreliable and unpractical. For this reason I began to rewrite one part after the other and finally I decided to redo all that was left as well. This is the reason why the development took one year longer than expected. It definitely was worth it anyway.” GMT: How much work has U3D been? Can you give us an estimate of how many lines of code U3D makes up? DRB: “A lot. Ultimate 3D 2.0, which is - as I already said - a complete rewrite, was in the development for about 1 1/2 year until the first beta was released and it took an additional half year to get to the release candidate (which had some important new features). Developing Ultimate 3D is my hobby, whenever there is nothing else to do I am working on it and I really like that. I have spent a lot of free time on it. The source code of Ultimate 3D 2.0 final is somewhere around 28000 lines and makes up 1 MB (pure code).” Interview continued on the next page.
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Interview With Dr. Best (Continued) GMT: Has U3D been long and hard work? Can you say the user statistics are supporting you? DRB: “If it was hard work I would not be doing it, would I? It is complicated and challenging work and that is what I like about it. The amount of things I have learned from it is simply huge. I am really looking forward to the development of Ultimate 3D 2.1, because there are some really complicated problems to be solved. The fact that there are so many people using the end product of my work is an additional motivation and it gives my work additional importance. Even more important the Ultimate 3D Community has influenced the development strongly, through many good suggestions and lots of bug reports. It is a great thing to have a place, where everybody is using your product.” GMT: What is one of your favourite games you have seen that is using your 3D engine? Why did you like it? DRB: “There are very few finished games with Ultimate 3D currently and the finished games are usually very small. The only Ultimate 3D 2.0 based game I can remember, which has a released alpha version in a advanced stage, is skarik’s Ruins. This definitely was nice. Being a effect maniac skarik has something in common with me. If it wasn’t as buggy as it is I would probably call this my favorite finished Ultimate 3D based game. Other than that there are some very promising projects. The biggest and best known one probably is Edge of Infinity (formerly known as Project Cynthillia) by Despellanion. If this project lives up to its potential it will be amazing. Time will show how the other works in progress turn out.” GMT: Has Ultimate 3D reached its goal? Can we expect any new features in the future? If so, what are your plans for it? DRB: “Ultimate 3D 2.0 has become what it was supposed to become, so Ultimate 3D 2.0 has reached its goal, but Ultimate 3D in its completeness has not. Ultimate 3D 2.0 has been in the development phase for a very long time and therefore I have been programming without getting any feedback. Now that it is released some things turned out to be missing. Those are what I want to add to Ultimate 3D 2.1. The most important new feature will be a completely new system for collision detection and collision management. It will be based upon ellipsoids instead of rays, which is more natural and more reliable, and it will be built-in, which makes the use easier and increases the performance since less GML code is needed. Other than that there will be lots of small improvements, which will lead to many new possibilities. For example there will be a feature that will make it possible to have backgrounds with shader effects, which is a great enhancement.” GMT: Do you have any usage advise for Game Maker users? DRB: “Sure. I have lots of tips and all of them are explained in detail in the documentation of Ultimate 3D, which is available as Microsoft HTML help file, as online version on Ultimate3D.org
and as part of the Ultimate 3D Wiki. Getting more concrete here would be hard. There are no three super hints, which will always lead you to perfect results. There are lots of useful things to know and I did my best to document all of them in the official documentation. For example, if you want a high performance, you can find lots of helpful hints in the chapter about performance optimization. The only general hint that seems important enough to me to be mentioned here is the following one: Don’t expect too much. With Ultimate 3D you can get decent effects and big amounts of geometry can be handled efficiently (if it is done correctly), but there are two reasons, why you will not be able to get graphics which can keep up with the graphics of commercial games, even if they are a bit older. The first, less important reason is that Ultimate 3D does not offer everything you would need for this purpose. If it would do so, it would be too complex for most users anyway, so that basically is something to be glad about. The second, more important reason is that Game Maker is just a simple game making tool. Its low level of complexity, its moderate reliability and especially its very low performance make it impossible to realize really big projects with it. Game Maker was never built for such uses. So please get creative, not megalomaniac.” GMT: Finally will you be staying around as a GM user or do you have other ventures you wish to follow? DRB: “I am not a user of Game Maker. I have stopped using Game Maker years ago and it was quite painful to start working with it again for the Tech Demo. All I usually do in Game Maker is writing some interface scripts for Ultimate 3D. You will probably never again see anything made by me with Game Maker that does not have to do with Ultimate 3D. If I want to program something I use C++ with Ultimate 3D (of course not the Ultimate3D.dll with the interface for Game Maker, but another one which is not and will not be released). Anyway you can rely on the fact that I will continue writing interfaces to Game Maker for Ultimate 3D, so there definitely will be more versions of Ultimate 3D for Game Maker.” GMT: Thank-you for the interview. Is there any final words you would like to say? DRB: “Since the first version Ultimate 3D has gone a very long way. On this way the development of Ultimate 3D 2.0 was a big jump forward, but the way continues right now. During the past five month I have had very much work at the university, this is why there have not been many news in this time (the Tech Demo was almost finished when the semester began). Today the semester has ended so I am starting with the next step on the way right now. Get ready for Ultimate 3D 2.1 (well, and stay ready for a couple of months).” Read the extended interview on the GMTech Wiki Interview conducted by gmjab
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EXCLUSIVES
Insight Into: FLaiL
YMM shows GMTM what he has been working on lately. FLaiL has been in development for about 1 year. However, it has been in active development for a total of about two months. It’s one of those projects that sits in the background on your hard drive while you slave away at ‘more important’ games. FLaiL is also a platformer, but I guess that’s a given considering I make platformers almost exclusively. FLaiL is formed out of a very simple set of core game rules, which are expanded, through cleverly designed environmental obstacles, to complexity. It’s a similar concept to that of Jumper, but executed differently. The player can jump; obviously, and also grab ledges (then pull themselves up after doing so). There is no double jump, but instead the player possesses a unique ability. If you’ve ever played Super Smash Bros. Melee, you might recognize it as being very similar to Fox’s recovery ability. You can hold the FLY button to charge up, and while charging indicate a direction with the d-pad (or arrow keys, for the gamepad-less). When charging is complete, you’ll rocket off in the chosen direction. At first it can be difficult to aim, but practice makes perfect. Normally, you can only perform this ability once in the air before you must touch the ground or grab a ledge.
Insight into: Vortec
Of course, there are all kinds of variables powerups which allow you to perform the FLY power multiple times in mid-air and areas which prevent you from utilizing it at all, objects which reverse the flow of gravity, moving platforms, etc. The game is heavily time-trial based, unlike Jumper. The faster you complete a stage, the more points you earn - of course there are also items to collect along the way which add time to the clock. New zones (sets of 10 stages) are unlocked when the sum of all your best scores surpasses specific milestones, making the game very non-linear. You can play the stages within each zone in any order, skipping levels that give you too much trouble. As for multiplayer, FLaiL is 2.5-player. Two friends can play the stages simultaneously and try to beat their personal best scores (or each others). A third player uses the mouse to place bombs at choke points in an attempt to explode the others into tiny pieces. FLaiL is nearing completion, but I have not yet set a release date. Written by Matt ‘YMM’ Thorson (Project Creator)
A new strategy game in the making. Could this game be good? ... GMT gets some information on it. Vortec is a strategy game in which you must take over the universe before the enemy, by taking over planets and building ships. Each colonized planet has a population which you can use to build ships to colonize uninhabited planets, or to try and overwhelm the enemy. The storyline behind the game is of a futuristic society that has spread throughout the galaxy and has been suddenly attacked by an unknown enemy, which you must destroy. As the game progresses you learn more about what they are and where they came from.
The Vortec project was started several months ago and has come along way since, I’ve been updating it about every two weeks and It’s gotten some nice responses. This game originally started out as a test for some blend modes and has evolved to its current state, it features some nice home made graphics and tons of effects. So far it only has two modes besides the story, but the game has quite a bit to offer. In future versions I hope to add several other aspects to the game to make it harder such as black holes that suck in ships and suns that can super nova and strip colonized planets back into uninhabited planets.
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EXCLUSIVES
Madhouse on DS
phubans lets us in on the big plans for his new Madhouse game. I started working on Madhouse back in the later half of 2004; it was based off an idea I got when I first started using Game Maker in 2003. I wanted to create a two-player versus game using Halloween-inspired characters and themes. I’m not really sure where the inspiration came from; it just kind of hit me all at once and I went from there. Once I worked out the graphical style of the game, that’s when things really started moving. It was a lot of work and there were plenty of hurdles; I was actually learning how to code in GML while making the game, so it was largely a learning experience. A few months into the project my data file actually became corrupt and I had lost a lot of work; about 2 weeks worth... I was greatly disappointed and didn’t touch the project for several months. Needless to say, I started working on the game again and was able to redesign everything that had been lost. For the next two years I continued working on the game until it became what we see today. As of right now I’m currently speaking with the owner of a game development studio here in San Francisco who’s seen Madhouse and liked the idea.
We’re talking about getting it published as a DS game, and if we’re able to find a publisher, he’s going to hire me and we’ll begin working on the game. It’s all very exciting, because making video games on a commercial level has been my dream for the past 20 years (I’m 26) and it’s also the reason I moved to California. So I’m currently working on a DS mock-up demo of Madhouse that is made to look like it’s playing on a DS, and my associate who has the studio will be showing this as a teaser of other projects his studio has planned at the upcoming Independent Games Festival. Aside from Madhouse, there have been a few other projects I have worked on, but none that have really gotten off the ground, unfortunately. I’ve devoted most of my time and energy into making Madhouse without having much left over for anything else. I am confident as well as hopeful for the success of Madhouse DS, however, and if and when the game has been completed I look forward to starting on new projects. More information on Madhouse can be found at the official website, www.madhousegame.com. Written by phubans (Project Creator)
Insight into: Love Up! phubans is already making a new game so what’s it all about?
A more recent project that I have started is called Love Up!! This game is quite a departure from Madhouse, as the theme is almost exactly opposite. Basically, the premise is that you, a loving empath, have come to a world full of “meanies” who you must convert into “friendlies” by showering them with your love. The game is heavily inspired by my own view of our society; we live in a world full of many people who have been hurt to the point of losing their inner-light... Now these people run around spreading their own misery to others and it’s up to those who still have some light to make them
happy again. But just like in real life, your character in the game can become hurt and eventually his heart will break, too... So you have to be careful; it’s a very difficult game. It’s still in early development and I haven’t really released anything “official” yet, except for a preview on my forum. I also showed that game to the studio guy and he loved it and said it would make a good Wii Ware title. At any rate, I hope things work out; not only for the sake of fulfilling my dream but having the opportunity to reach a larger audience with messages that I feel are extremely important for the times we’re living in. Written by phubans (Project Creator)
25
EXCLUSIVE
Exclusive: Love Up Demo Graphics: 4/5 • Gameplay: 4/5 • Audio: 2/5
You can tell when a game is professionally made. The graphics are synonymous with each other and are all good to look at, sounds are appropriate and somehow fit with the graphical style, and the gameplay is fun and rarely glitchy. This is why, if a couple of decades ago, a software giant such as Nintendo had released LOVE UP!!, it would have probably sold shedloads (and no doubt currently be available on the next-gen consoles in 3D…). That is pending, of course, the full release has a couple of changes. The graphics are simple, yet wonderful. They all fit together in perfect harmony in their pixellated glory. The land itself is a tileset job, and a good one at that. I didn’t experience a single collision error with the tiles. The player and enemies are very simple, but again fantastic, and the bullets are lovehearts that look cool. The backgrounds change depending on your state of happiness, which is also a nice touch.
dirty work, but the attack of the stationary ones is a little more sophisticated. They stand, seemingly infatuated in their own motionlessness. Then, as you approach them, they shake a bit, then flash red. After a second or so of flashing, they swear at you. The swear comes out in the form of five symbols (you often see them in cartoons to mask swearing) that fly in your direction, and if they hit, you lose happiness. These swears can even turn happy enemies back into angry little swines again. Your health is measured in states of happiness. There are six states: Defeated, Sad, Jaded, Normal, Happy, and Ecstatic. The first is when you turn into an enemy. You start each level at Normal. Your happiness slowly decreases through time, but an enemy attack will knock it down an entire stage. It can be increased by “happifying” enemies or by collecting pills (pills that make you happy? Hmm). Every level sees a different background, a different facial expression on your character, and a different attack, and it really does have an impact on the atmosphere – you really do feel that little bit more happy when the sun is out, rainbows follow your every move, and enemies are being “happified” left, right and centre. I found the control system a little bit awkward. As opposed to the traditional control system where you move with up/ left/right and shoot in the direction you’re facing, in LOVE UP!! you use A/D/W to move and the directional arrows to shoot in that direction. Although the idea itself is fine, being right-handed, it felt weird. I hope in the full version you will be able to switch sides, so the directions do the moving and the letters do the shooting.
I’ll skim past sound quickly – LOVE UP!! is slightly lacking right now. What sound effects that are present fit in very well, but there’s not quite enough right now, and there’s absolutely no music. I’m sure, however, the creator will endeavour to get some fitting music (it’d be a massive downside if the music was bad or non-existent). The gameplay is what takes this game high. The concept itself is brilliant, in that it works amazingly in gameplay form, is simple, and has pretty much never been seen before. The “enemies”, if they are called that, are unhappy, and you must make them happy by, quite simply, “shooting them with love”. The happier your character is, the more effective the love he shoots is. When sad, he’ll shoot a single heart that quickly sinks. When happy, he can shoot two that only sink after a long distance, while being in a state of ecstasy allows him to fire huge, supereffective hearts. As well as that, his rate of fire increases with happiness. When an enemy has been shot sufficiently, instead of dying, he’ll turn happy and start roaming around with a great big smile on his face. Enemies can decrease your state of happiness by doing one of two things, and it depends on whether they’re stationary or not. The ones that walk about simply run into you to do their
Pro’s Very good to look at Feels professionally-made Unique idea Con’s Can get a little dull Controls can feel a little awkward As yet no music Overall I have criticised the game in a few ways, but I am willing to let it slide as the game is still a work in progress. I really want to play the full version of the game, as it is an original idea very well executed and polished to the extreme. It’s not just the stand-out features that make LOVE UP!! as good as it is, it’s all the little details that only those with a decent eye will pick up on. I’m sure that when it is released in all its full glory, it will be the sort of thing Nintendo regrets not coining many years ago. Read the extended full review on the GMTech Wiki Written by NAL
26
REVIEWS
L4nimation Studio
Graphics: 2.5/5 • Functionality: 3.5/5 • Audio: n/a
When I was first greeted by the L4nimation Studio’s main interface I thought it’d be difficult to pick up. How wrong I was – within about 5 minutes I felt comfortable with it. The interface is, as I previously mentioned, daunting at first. With a little learning, it’s very nice though. It’s a case of experimenting with all the little buttons and sliders. After a message and a help-file (for first-time users) you are put into a 3D room containing an HUD, a grid floor and a simple man-shape. No stupid bits clogging up room unnecessarily, nothing too complicated. The HUD is not elaborated decorated, it’s a set of partially see-through grey boxes with stuff on them. It’s very refreshing to see something so functional feel so simple.
can singly view each frame making it easy to adjust the model on particler frames. The frame strip also allows to to deletes frames and to dubpicate the first frame which is useful when looping an animation. There are a several of bugs I found. In the first two one is annoying and the other makes no real difference whatsoever to the program’s use. The latter is simply that you can see bodypart highlights through the floor if you move the camera below ground level. The annoying one is with the X-Y map on the topright of the screen. If you grab the red slider, which I presume is supposed to slide anywhere around that box, it adheres itself to x=-50 (ie. the left of the box). It’s fixable by manually setting the x coordinate, but still annoying. There is also a bug with the X and Y images displayed on the grid. Normal they will turn to the direction of the camera so they remain clearly visible. However when moving the camera below ground level the X and Y no-longer tilt towards the camera, making it very difficult to see. The other problem is due to depth issues. When moving the camera below the ground one again the grid appears through the ground on some angles. These minor bugs can easily be corrected and are not something to be worried about. There are a number of possible suggestion I could give for future version of L4nimation. I will list just three of them:
In terms of graphics, I’ve pretty much covered it. Due to L4nimation Studio being a program, there are no walls, ceilings or anything. It’s a man on a grid. The man is no more than seven 3D shapes making a crude man-shape. It doesn’t matter though. The basic guy is there, and you do not need anything more complicated. Looking at the GUI on the other hand it is very nice. L4nimation Studio takes on the blank grey style interface that many 3D programs have. The GUI is simple and effective but I think themeing could be added to the program to allow the user to chose his/her own skin color.
Pro’s Easy to grasp User-friendly interface Does its job effectively
I’ll move onto audio. What audio? L4nimation Studio has none. It’s a program though – any audio may detract from its purpose (although the odd click sound effect to acknowledge my activation of a button would be nice).
Con’s Not great for compicated animations May feel too simple for some A few things give it an unprofessional feel
In terms of functionality, L4nt0m plays an ace. It allows beginners to make otherwise-complicated human model movement with a few clicks. Sure, it’s time consuming, but what isn’t? The ease with which people can make animations is very, very nice, and that’s what the program is for. With the animation you
Overall In all, you’ve got to want human model animation to appreciate L4nimation Studio. For a little play around, you’ll get bored quickly, but for the task at hand you’ll be hard-pressed to find better without shelling out both money and learning time.
- Animation looping - Program Options (Themes, Camera Settings) - Add the ability to animate more then just a person
Written by NAL
27
REVIEWS
Battle of the White Eagle Graphics: 3.5/5 • Gameplay: 3/5 • Audio: 4.5/5
The Battle of the White Eagle is an example of a game that could be absolutely brilliant, but does not yet hit the mark. The core idea is excellent, but is backed up with a couple of unfortunate downers. The graphics in the game are very nice. When the game first starts it has a video introduction which you don’t really see very often. The game menu is of decent quality but has nothing that will really stand out. The buttons had a nice glow effect and in the controls room there were nice 3D buttons which looked quite good. The game has a custom message box but it is only basically a gradient background which doesn’t look that attractive. In the game it is obvious the creator has taken great care to ensure the graphics fit together – despite their simplicity and general “scruffiness” (instead of straight lines and well-measured geometrical shapes you get jagged edges and obscure shapes) they work. I found that some graphics did not have realistic sizes, for example, the boss which is a horse is like 4 times the size of you. However the game is fantasy and anything is possible. Next was the terrain which looked good however its hard to see where you can walk when your in the trees as it seems there are invisible platforms. I thought the cut scenes were a great addition to the game. The cut scenes gave it a more professional look to the game as well as boost it’s story. The game effects are also nicely done, although do not fit flawlessly with the game theme. The only other downer, and it is a tiny one, is the character animation. It looks a little weird. Otherwise, the graphics are great. The sounds and music in the game are brilliant, music especially. They give the game the atmosphere it deserves, and never feel out of place. Their format and quality contribute to the big file size though, their size could probably be halved without any noticeable diminishment of quality. The gameplay is, in general, what lets the game down. The basic platforming is fine – running, jumping, climbing etc. are all integrated well and rarely glitch. On the other hand, the combat is poor. There are two attacks, which are basically “shoot in facing direction” or “shoot a big corona-like circle”. The former is pointless – it does little damage. The latter is OK but still not brilliant (you can charge it to get a bigger corona). The poor combat is showcased mainly in the boss level, basically a big horse and rider. The easiest way to kill him is to spend about five minutes constantly running under his belly firing the corona-like rings until he dies.
The level design was quite imaginative on a few levels, but on others some levels were very blank with no enemies and no activities. On most of the levels you’ll find yourself walking around the place collecting little starry objects. There is no real game help so you will need to figure out where you need to go to continue to the next level. There were some little things such as cracks in the ground that you can climb down which I found quite smart.
There was one good activity I liked which required you to jump on different buttons to rotate pieces of a circuit to go together which then unlocks the next level. Lastly there was no game lag which is always good to see. The plot of the game is a letdown. It gives you a back story, ends way too abruptly and rolls the credits. You feel like the game is just getting started… then it ends. Because the game is short replay value is lost. It would be good if the game was a bit more random so when playing it over again it won’t be as easy to complete. Pro’s Great graphics and effects Music is very well implemented Solid gameplay Con’s Huge game file Feels unfinished in places Combat is fairly poor Overall I began the review by mentioning that the game could be brilliant if improvements were made. If the combat mechanism was changed, and the story was vastly lengthened, it could become brilliant. Everything that’s needed is there; a nice variety of levels, great graphics and music, a nice story idea; but it currently feels like a work in progress. Written by NAL
28
REVIEWS
Cell Burst
Graphics: 4/5 • Gameplay: 3.5/5 • Audio: 4/5
Elmernite is known for making a few platform shooters in the past and they keep getting better every time. Cell Burst is Elmernite’s latest game and it’s very good, even scoring a staff pick on YoYo Games. So what is Cell Burst all about? Well, you play as a “cell” looking creature/person and the basic point of the game is to destroy all the other cell guys as many times over as you can. The game has several game modes, guns and scenes to play in. So after about 20 seconds setting up your game scene you’ll be jumping around all over the screen dodging as many bullets as you can. But I must warn you, if you’ve never played a game like this before the AI will not treat you kindly. Cell Burst has some mighty graphics. As I started the game I had a great relief when I actually saw a custom loading bar for the first time in ages. Now if you’re one of those people that likes starring at menus that have smooth graphics then you’ll be doing it with this game. Cell Burst has an excellent scrolling effect between menus that just looks superb and if you hit a back button it’ll even scroll backwards again! When starting a game you will also be shown a possibly fake loading screen which is very nice also. You can tell that much effort has been put into the menu design in this game. The in-game graphics are the next big thing you’ll like. Each game level is completely different from one another, although some looked much better than others. There is no scrolling in the game whatsoever so it’s just one set playing area. Each gun has its own graphical effect to go with it. The effect I like most of all was that of the classic flamethrower. When a player dies the body falls into black pieces, a little like ash. The death effect was very cool indeed. I found the size of the players a bit small, too small to see the good details of each player, however this really isn’t an issue. The game doesn’t have much of a HUD which is a pity because it could be used to show many different details. Then again, the game is that fast paced you don’t get a chance to look away from your target. There was one downer with the graphics: the fact that the cell guy characters look 3D while the playing area is flat 2D, so to me it didn’t fully fit. Next: the sound and music. The in-game music was good and there were a few different songs to go with different levels. The game had great sound effect for both the menu and the game. The menu has a sound effect for the menu scrolling effect which I mentioned earlier, however, it didn’t seem to have button
click sounds. I noticed each gun had a sound effect except for the flamethrower. An effect for the flamethrower should be added, I think. After a while of playing, the sounds got very repetitive and were boring. Some sound variety for each gun would be an improvement. Lastly how does the game play? I have to say it’s very smooth and seamless unlike many other games you see around today. The game menus can’t really be improved on since they work so well. However, a great addition to the game would be to have some sort of level editor. If this was to be included adjustments to the combo box for choosing a level would need a scroll bar. When first playing the game, I was playing it on “granny” difficulty because I found it was too fast to keep up with. However you’ll find that after a few plays the other difficulties are more in reach. For me the best way to stay alive was to jump around like an idiot before getting shrivelled up in mid-air by a flamethrower... but that’s just my way. Going head on into the bullets is not an option in this game because you’ll be dead before you hit the arrow key. The controls were easy to use however when you die you lose all your guns (which is annoying). I also found no game lag whatsoever. So in my opinion the gameplay is very good. Pro’s Smooth graphics Nice selection of music/sound effects Menu style is somewhat unique Con’s Can be a little too fast paced to survive The game gets repetitive Takes a while to fully get used to the game Overall The game is excellent and sure deserves its stars. The graphics are very smooth with only a few tiny problems. Sound and music is good, however, it could use a few more adjustments. Lastly, the gameplay is pretty much as good as it gets besides the fact that it is fast. Overall, brilliant work. Perhaps we could see a sequel soon. Written by gmjab
29
REVIEWS
3D Racer
Graphics: 3/5 • Gameplay: 3/5 • Audio: 3/5
3D games on the GMC are always seen as something rare, mainly because 3D games are hard to make, and GM handles models very slowly. Dmitko, who had earlier released Pure Action CTF, has now come with a new 3D game, called.. well.. 3D Racer. Despite the very cheesy name it has now, this game is well worth playing. Despite the simplicity of the models used in this game, they start to give this game the feel of a N64 game, and if the game’s environment is further polished, I really believe this effect could be achieved. I also found it pretty amusing to see the sheep standing in the middle of the road. Driving your funky vehicle would be very fun to do as well, if there was a bigger track to drive on. I found it amusing to see my character rise up as a ghost when my car blew up because of too many collisions with the boundaries of the track. As I drove on the track, I noticed something that frustrated the crap out of me; my competitor made no mistakes. He never collided with any wall. He always drove on the middle of the road (Unless I bumped into him of course, then he went all faulty instead). He is too smart. I thought I could change that by shooting a sheep on him, but no.. He doesn’t even slow down. This should definitely be fixed as it is very annoying to race against someone who is so much better than you. Enough complaining, this game’s sound effects are pretty good so far. Not very realistic, but still good, as they fit the simple style of the game. Now add some Mario Kart-like music beneath it, and this game will be better already.
Pro’s Great 3D graphics for a GM game Decent sound effects The game had a nice simple feel Con’s Enviroments could be furter worked on AI doesn’t make any mistakes A few things give it an unprofessional feel Overall Despite the pretty major downsides this game has, I DO recommend you to play this game, even more when it’s finished. Dmitko’s done well with this. Written by Medieval
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30
REVIEWS
Frozzd
Graphics: 4.5/5 • Gameplay: 4.5/5 • Audio: 3.5/5
The YoYo Games winter competition has seen a lot of original games come in and Frozzd is perhaps the most original of them all. Sure, the influence by Super Mario Galaxy is evident (and has also been stated by the author) but ultimately Frozzd is a new and enjoyable playing experience. Frozzd takes place in the “Universe” and your objective is to free all the Mubblies, cute orange beings, and take them back to the Mubbly Kingdom. The Mubblies are lost throughout various snow covered planets and you will use your spaceship to travel between each planet. Eventually you will also have to fight the “root of all evil (and snow)” in order to protect the Mubblies from future danger. At its simplest, Frozzd is a platform game. However the addition of 360° gravity makes it a very unique one. While the gravity looks a little unsmooth at times, on the whole it’s implanted very well. Another difference from most platform games is that your character will not be doing the attacking. Instead it will be up to the Mubblies that you rescue to perform firing duties. When you encounter an enemy the Mublies will automatically shoot at it although you must first ensure that you are set to attack mode. Having the Mubblies attack for you makes this game more relaxing to watch as you won’t be on the edge of your seat trying to shoot the enemy. The other mode, unfreeze, is used to rescue the Mubblies from their frozen state. A few shots from your Mubbly king and the ice will break off and you’ll have a new Mubbly to help you. As well as protecting the Mubblies, you need to keep an eye on your characters temperature; a hot chocolate will surely help you there. The menu is different from other menus. It incorporates all the levels and options in the one room making the menu very easy to navigate. You will notice when moving the cursor around that the spaceship actually flies around the cursor very smoothly. Frozzd has an excellent level select system which shows the level name, description, wether the level is new or finished and the score you received if you finished that level. This system is similar to games such as SimCity 4 and TheSims. There are 12 levels altogether, and at some points you can decide in which order you attempt them. The only slight downfall of the game is it’s length. Levels don’t take that long to complete and a decent player should not have too much trouble until the final couple of stages. The level design almost completely changes for every level making the game more unique.
Graphically the game is very cute. The menu has been well designed with nice glossy icons for game options. The characters are fairly simple but well shaded and give them a very charming look. All the graphics fit perfectly together and maintain a glossy cartoon-ish effect. The chosen colours for the game are easy on the eyes and flow beautifully. The only small gripe I found with the graphics was the background. While it looks good it just seems a little too repetitive. The snowy look is obviously one of the main themes of the game but it would have been nice to see just a few more colours, although admittedly it does make the Mublies stand out well. The music is great but the lack of different tracks makes it get a little old. It does however suit the atmosphere very well. I would have also preferred to hear more sound effects. Sometimes the absence of them makes the game seem a little empty. Most sound effects that are included are decent although the hot chocolate sound seemed a little lo-fi.
Pro’s Smooth well shaded graphics High quality music Excellent and unique gameplay Con’s Could use more music tracks Most levels are too easy Needs more colours in levels Overall Frozzd is a charming, and most importantly, fun, game which also shows that it is still possible to create a unique 2d platformer. Frozzd is also great to look at, with the only real thing holding back the rating being the small amount of sound effects and length. A well deserved first place in the YoYo Games Winter competition. Written by Mediocre
31
REVIEWS
Garden Gnome Carnage Graphics: 3.5/5 • Gameplay: 4.5/5 • Audio: 4/5
Picture this. You are a gnome in the big city and you despise nothing more than holidays... except perhaps those pesky elves who keep trying to drop gifts down your chimney. Now what would be the best way to stop these elves? Perhaps you could attach some remote-controlled wheels to the skyscraper you live in, tie yourself to your chimney with a bungee rope and throw bricks at them? Yes, if I had to describe Garden Gnome Carnage in one word, I would call it “crazy”. As crazy as the whole thing sounds, Ultimortal has pulled off the idea very well which leads to a very unique and enjoyable game. While the core idea of the game is very simple, there are many nice touches that add depth to the gameplay. Examples of these include the “Brickopalypse”; which is when you charge up the building and release all the bricks in a destructive rage, and wind; which you can use to blow enemy gifts off the screen (“owning” them in a sense). You can find out some of these additions along with other helpful information by unlocking protips. A list of the unlockable protips has been included with the review so check it out for gameplay tips. The bungee rope and bricks behave well in that it is fairly easy to control but difficult to master. Eventually you will have some relief when reinforcements arrive to help you battle the rising elves after 80,000 points. This keeps the game challenging without becoming too frustrating. If you manage to score enough points, you will also have the chance to play some mini games which is something to keep you playing. Graphically the game is something you would expect from a relatively old arcade game. However that certainly does not take away from the game. While the sprites are simple, they are very well polished and colourful without being bad on the eye. The effects are impressive while still remaining faithful to the classic arcade style. After you get past level 30 you may notice the game start to lag through the mass amounts of explosions and falling objects. I thought the “Brickopalypse” and air-strikes in particular looked great. There were also some humorous graphics which will pop up from time to time such as when you hit a big killing combo. The menu also kept a quick arcade style. The game has a nice highscore board the can be easily seen. In addition there were some cool animated shine effects on the gnome’s glasses and the game name. Much like the graphics, the audio feels very nostalgic. Fortunately it all fits together very well with the gameplay and graphics to ultimately give the impression of a well made game. The music is surprisingly catchy despite the “bleeps and blops” sound and there is also some short but humorous speech throughout the game.
Unlockable Protips - [A] and [D] buttons control the wind - The cat is your friend - Hold [S] to charge Brickopalypse - Rock the house back and forth to shake off elves - Sparkly cat mean golden bricks - Fill Whopee-meter and use air-strike for a cone race - Erratic wind will knock parachuting presents out of the sky - Low on bricks? Let the cat reach the chimney - With a house completely full of gold, get another gold refill for diamond - No air-strikes? Bounce cat off the screen until princess arrives - No air-strikes? Double bounce cat for instant princess - Achieve high combos to get whopees - Volley cat twice to make it sparkle - Blow parachuting presents of the screen using [A] and [D] - Press [W] to increase level to a maximum of 15 - Reinforcements arrive after 80,000 points Pro’s Cool arcade styled graphics Humorous little graphics to make the game even more fun Great gameplay and nice unlockable features Con’s This game can become boring after a while Hard to master the bungee rope Different backgrounds on levels would have been nice Overall So despite everything being quite simple, whether it be the arcade style graphics and audio or simple gameplay design, it is easy to see why Garden Gnome Carnage achieved a second placing in the YoYoGames winter competition. The idea behind the game is both unique and fun while the wide range of little touches increase the replay value significantly. Give this game a go, you will be in for a blast! Written by Mediocre
32
REVIEWS
Granny and Snowmen Graphics: 5/5 • Gameplay: 3/5 • Audio: 4/5
There are a lot of generic action games made with Game Maker. You know the ones... move your character around in a frenzy, shoot anything that moves with the mouse and then move on to the next level. When it comes to game mechanics, Granny and Snowmen is not a lot different and sadly you will not get any innovative or unique gameplay elements. But while the game lacks in uniqueness, it redeems itself well with polish and top class presentation. The story is a bit lacking but a story is not what makes these kind of games enjoyable. Basically a UFO crashed near Granny’s house. The aliens need fuel in the form of Granny’s pies in order to get their spaceship back up and running. Unfortunately for the aliens, Granny is a retired secret agent so is able to take action, and defend herself and her home from the aliens. Your aim is to hold out the aliens in nine levels before ultimately destroying the alien spaceship. A simple story but the tongue-in-cheek tone makes it quietly amusing. Granny and Snowmen simply looks fantastic. As you start the game you are presented with a custom snowman loading bar which you don’t see often, then you are treated to a well designed menu that shows game credits, highscores, options and of course starting the game. The level select screen fits perfectly into this game and the best part about it is: In about 3 clicks you can play the game. RedSystem has done well to ensure the menu screen does not look cluttered considering how much is displayed on the title screen and he has made it extremely easy to navigate. The object and scenery sprites are equally well presented. They have a crisp, smooth, fun look and the animations flow and are pleasing to look at. You don’t need to squint your eyes or put sun glasses on to play this game because of the perfect colour choice. Throughout the game you will notice most of the graphics were made in 3D software which is perfect for this game’s perspective. At times I did notice there were a few depth problems with some of the graphics. The effects are great too and are consistent with the cartoon style of graphics. The in-game music is an uplifting techno style track which fits pretty well with the game although a slightly more wintery track may have been a better choice. Either way the music definitely adds to the game, rather then hinders it. All the sound effects are well done. It is quite amusing to hear some of Granny’s voice acting and the snowmen’s grunts as the battle is taking place.
In reality the gameplay is probably nothing you have not seen before. You must protect Granny’s house from the aliens while also protecting yourself. This is done by using three weapons (each with its own secondary fire mode) at your disposal although you will not have access to all of them straight away. To help you out there is also four power-ups available to you, such as an increase in your rate of fire, which will appear throughout the game as well as other bonus objects. While there is not a huge amount of enemies they each have a very unique look and
all have different ways of causing damage. The difficulty curve is good; it will take a few tries to get through each of the levels but should not get too frustrating. Lastly, one of the best parts of this game is: despite there being heaps of objects, bullets and effects there was no game lag ever found which means RedSystem has probably put in a good effort to keep the game clean and simple in its code. With all this in mind you can see why it was one of the YoYo Games Winter Competition winners.
Pro’s Beautiful flowing cartoon graphics Sound effects and music were very fitting You don’t see this type of game often Con’s A few graphical depth issues Seemingly overused game mechanics Could do with easy, normal or hard difficulty setting Overall Overall, Granny and Snowmen is an entertaining little arcade game. Despite the seemingly overused mechanics of this game, it is certainly fun and addictive thanks in no small part to its incredible presentation and smooth engine. While this will not be the first or last game we see like this, it is definitely one I would recommend. Written by Mediocre
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Visit Snow Moon!
Snow Moon is a fresh new site to share games and examples. Friiks provides some information about SM. A fresh, new site with interesting features and all kinds of stuff where you, Game Maker users, can hang out...
Two months after that, a year since I started coding the site, it was released.
That’s how I would describe SM. I don’t remember why I started doing it like this but I like how it looks now. SM started as an IPB forum which I couldn’t pay for, so I had to scrap it, but I didn’t just want to lose the idea of a site that could unite people with same way of thinking, show each other their work, no matter if it was a game, WIP, image, sound, flash stuff or anything else. That’s how I started coding the site.
It wasn’t too popular at the beginning, we got maybe.. 2-3 members in a week if we were lucky and actually it continued for quite a while. I even started thinking about closing Snow Moon and turning it into some kind of file host or whatever but then people started coming and visiting. It was a great surprise and some time later I got a PM saying that “..Snow Moon has been dubbed as the new 64D..” and asked me if I would like to write an article about it. No one could get the smile off my face that day.
First design was horrible - It was nothing more than 3 blocks with a black border around on a blue background. Not to mention it wasn’t cross-browser compatible. I knew only some PHP at the beginning so I couldn’t do much but as I wanted to code more things that were more complex I had to learn things (which I did). But the design was still a problem, and that’s where GmWave came in, he designed Snow Moon’s design as you see it now. It was completely custom, hand made and... great. It was amazing compared to the old, blue design. I had worked for about 10 months when I finally got SM a domain name - snowmoons.com and a normal host. It was a great day for all the users we had by then - no more file upload limits, slow loading times or limited space.
I got to say one thing though, I’m not really happy with some people saying that SM is a copy of 64D. No, it’s not and it was never meant to be one. Snow Moon offers people to host and show off all kinds of their work - not only games as I mentioned before. I just wanted to make a community which people and I, myself, would like. I think I’ve achieved that. I have some words about great changes of SM for those people who already have seen SM and especially for those who haven’t - Me and GmWave are working hard on a new version of the site. It will be much more user-friendlier, faster, cleaner... better in all ways. I am hoping to write the last lines of code by the end of February and hope that nothing will prevent me of finishing it by that time. If you’ve read this far .. Snow Moon is waiting for you. We won’t bite. Written by Friiks(Site Owner)
Special Offer!
Click here to sign-up on Snow Moon and receive a special coloured username for a month, only available from GMTech Magazine.
^ The new Snow Moon website design to come.
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Interview With: Kairos
Gamez93 gets a chance to have an interview with Kairos to find out more about him and his views. GMT: Tell us a bit about you, and how you found the software GM. KRS: “I’m a 16 year old kid who likes to play, make and think about games. I usually like to play shoot-em-up games. I found GM through Google, although I do not remember the search term I used. I’ve been using it for a few years now, but I’ve only released 2 games so far, due to my free time being taken away by school and other priorities” GMT: Where did you get the inspiration for your sprites? KRS: “Kenta Cho’s rRootage and Hikoza. T. Ohkubo’s Warning Forever game. I found the abstract style very interesting - I played around a bit and ended up with my own variant of the vector-like graphics. While they may be rather difficult to animate, there are always ways to make pictures come alive.” GMT: There is always this ongoing discussion about: “What is more important, gameplay or graphics?”. What would you say?” KRS: “Both need an equal balance in my opinion. While indie developers and sensible people can recognize good gameplay and that the graphics don’t matter too much, the mainstream gamers do not. They look for the fancy stuff, and gameplay becomes a supplement. Therefore, to appeal to everyone, you need good gameplay and good graphics. However, if you’re an indie developer who likes to cater to the indie crowd and can’t make good graphics, focus on gameplay.” GMT: Your most recent game, Varia, won the SHMUP-DEV Competition 2k7 Round 2, what did you concentrate on in order to do this? KRS: “I simply kept forcing myself to think of the gameplay mechanics and the ‘fun factor’ that my game would have, and I compared it to other similar games. Having a deadline in a competition really helps because you can’t risk slacking off if you are determined to get a place at the top - basically, I didn’t stop working for any long period of time.” GMT: What was the biggest obstacle in this game that you had to overcome? KRS: “It was making the bosses and balancing the attacks and whatnot. It was a lot of work, and I kept testing my game many, many times just to make sure everything felt right.” GMT: As a developer I am sure you are always looking to learn new techniques, since your first game, Kairuga, what have you learnt? KRS: “Many new things, probably too much to list. The most im
portant things were the length_dir functions and the data structures. With every new game I make comes something new.” GMT: Do you see GM as a limited tool and are thinking about moving to other tools? KRS: “GM is indeed a limited tool. Nobody can argue with that. However, it is a tool that I can make a prototype of a design in only a few minutes, and I’m still learning about many of the functions. I’ve used faster tools before, but in the end I really like GM’s interface the best. Part of the reason of why I’m still using it now is to prove to people that you can make anything, regardless of the tool used to create it. It’s quite fun to push the limits of the engine to make people wonder if the game was really made in Game Maker.” GMT: What other software do you use? (For Music, GFX and/ or Game Making) KRS: “I use the trusty MS Paint and GM’s inbuilt graphics editor for GFX. You don’t need anything fancy to make good graphics. I also acquired Torque Game Builder Pro recently, but I still prefer using GM despite the possible advantages.” GMT: Do you hate YoYo Games or love them, and why? KRS: “I dislike the way they handle their site a bit. I never really liked the instant play idea, and the download link should be right next to the instant play button. While there are many other things I don’t agree with, I won’t go into them.” GMT: If there are any new features that you would like to see in GM8, what would they be, and why? KRS: “I’d like to see more security - a lot more security. I couldn’t care less about new functions. GM games can be hacked quite easily from what I’ve been reading, and frankly, I’d rather not have my work revealed to others. Security is also extremely crucial in multiplayer games.” GMT: Which projects should we see from you this year? KRS: “You can expect a multiplayer micro-based RTS. Of course, right now is a little too early for details, but I’ve gotten a nice bit done so far. We need real online games to play instead of the countless online platformer clones out there.” GMT: Is there anything else you want to say to our readers? KRS: “Use GM to the fullest to create some wonderful and original games. And don’t give up on original ideas. If you are determined to get to a goal, then think positively on the development of the game.” Interview conducted by Gamez93
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GMT Outlook
This issue, GMT Outlook brings you info on the YYG timeline and opinions on the YYG Winter Competition YoYo Games Winter Compition in the Game Maker world, many have been focused on YoYo Games and their latest challenge, the first competition. With the theme as ‘winter’ hundreds of developers set about creating their masterpieces, hoping to be one of the people to collect one of the three cash prizes ($1000 for 1st place, $500 for 2nd place and $250 for 3rd place). User Opinion Most people were very happy with the fact that 2dCube (Creator of ‘Frozzd’), won the first YoYo Games Contest, here is what some of them had to say…
YoYo Games Timeline YoYo Games has done quite a bit since it first started but noone has compiled a list of what they have done yet. However thanks to Phil Gamble from gamemakerblog.com he has compiled a list of links and dates to news YoYo Games has released. The list is as follows: Oct 15th 2004 YoYo Games Ltd registered as a company Jan 26th 2007 Mark Overmars announces formation of YoYoGames
Smarty - “Congratulations, 2D Cube. One of the most original entries, a deserved win. Same goes for place 2 and 3.
Feb 2nd 2007 Registration at YoYoGames website starts
According to one of the posters here, you are “rich” now.”
Feb 28th 2007 GameMaker version 7 released
YoYo Games Judges - “A game to silence any detractors of 2-dimensional game play. The comparison to Mario is inevitable, with elements from Paper Mario and Mario Galaxy combined to make something altogether new, and more interesting than either. Moreover the characters have a charm all their own and we found ourselves sucked into the “Wubbly” world. Excellent concept, Great graphics, good level design, a nice range of enemies and fine polish - $1,000 well earned. That this game has found such strong approval in the community is no surprise. The judges were left charmed.” BlaXun - “Congratulations to all the winners, and especially 2DCube.
April 27th 2007 First public beta of YoYoGames website Sep 6th 2007 Instant play feature released along with 2nd version of website Sep 6th 2007 Commitment to “Game Maker 7 for the Mac” Nov 8th 2007 Winter Competition announced
A very entertaining and solid gaming experience =)”
December 2007 “Vote for us” month
Timoi - “Frozzd was a clear winner in my opinion, wonderfully polished, and great fun to play.”
Jan 10th 2008 Winter Competition results announced
Conclusion Considering the three games, I think that YoYo Games made the right choice in who should have won, as ‘Frozzd’ is a great game. Now this competition is over, YoYo Games have released details about their next competition and it has begun. Taking into account the complaints from last time, they have given developers more time to complete a game and a deadline is now set for 27th April 2008. This time an interesting theme has been picked: ‘Ancient Civilisation’. This has opened up the possibility of many potentially interesting games as so far many people have started basing their games on civilisations in the past, invented civilisations, old civilisations meeting new civilisations. This gives YoYo Games exactly what they want, exposure and a bigger games database.
Jan 21st 2008 10,000 games, 75,000 developers Feb 1st 2008 Ancient Civilisation competition announced
Written by Rup13
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Comic
Take a break off game development and have a laugh at a comic.
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Check Out
Show your community spirit by taking a look at these great sites.
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Closing
With every beginning there will surely be an ending. Well now you can go outside and breath in some real air. With a new design and with a heap of articles and reviews we hope you liked this issue. Game Maker’s life has really only begun. Who knows what the future will bring for the excellent program? Only time will tell. With YoYo Games funding the development we can look forward to Game Maker becoming an even better program to be used. Until the next the issue, thank-you all for reading! Next Issue Here is a sneak peak of 4 things that will be in the next issue: 1. U3D 2.0 Getting Started Tutorial 2. Insight Into: Blazezone 3. Starting a Team 4. Global Gamer Profile If you wish to find out more or suggest something for the next issue visit out forums on: www.gamemakertech.info/forum/. Leave feedback Good or bad, we value your feedback. Your feedback lets us know how we should improve to satisfy all the Game Maker users. Your feedback can be about (although not limited to) articles, reviews, GM tips or the magazine in general. You can leave feedback in either our GMC topic or on our forum. Submit to the magazine Yes, we at GMTM will take almost any submission for a chance of it being published in the next issue. To submit to the magazine, simply go to our forum and submit in the “submit” section, registration is required and you will get a fast reply by one of our friendly staff. Here are three examples: - Submit your game to be reviewed - Submit an article/tutorial you have written - Submit exclusive information or request information
We only ask that you submit content that you have permission to. Do not submit things that are not your own unless you have permission of the owner and do not submit illegal content. At GMTM we take submissions seriously and we will do what it takes to keep our forum clean and friendly. Write for Game Maker Technology Magazine Some of you don’t have time to join the Game Maker Technology Magazine team, however you may have great writing skills, and if this is the case, then we welcome you to write articles freelance (where you work independently and on temporary contracts) - so you can write articles when you want, and have no deadlines. If you like the idea of being a freelance writer, check out more information here. View articles online and give feedback You can now view all the articles, reviews and other content in each magazine online. In addition to this you will be able to leave comments on articles/reviews and rate each article. This is all made possible on the Game Maker Technology Wiki. We look forward to your visit. Apply for a job Game Maker Technology Magazine is always looking for new fresh staff to write, research or review content for each magazine. If you think you got what it takes to join us, check out the forum for more details as to what jobs are available. Creative commons The Game Maker Technology Magazine is licensed under Creative Commons license. This means you are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work. This work is for Non-Commercial use only. You are NOT allowed to alter, modify or build upon the work contained in the magazine.
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