GameMaker is so sick now.

Looks like they fixed everything I used to hate about it.

• Difficult to manage object instances
• Audio sucked ass
• No mac support
• Small community/no serious games ever made in the engine
• Interface looked like it was made in 1997
• Lack of sexiness
• No tutorials
• Community consisted of 14 year olds and people from non-english speaking countries, exclusively

$99 to publish to windows/mac.

</the end>

 

What's your definition of a serious game?

http://www.yoyogames.com/showcase/102/undertale

 

That's exactly what I was wondering...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotline_Miami

 

I am saying that all of those things have now been negated.

 

Well I hope it gets well soon.

 

Yes GameMaker Studio 2 looks sick.

But I guess this thread gets locked really quick, since they do not allow discussions about other engines anymore. (Which is a shame)

 

In before lock?

 

We're saying that's nothing new.

Also...

... what? Not everything has to put us English speakers first, y'know. There's plenty of other people speaking plenty of other languages.

 

Made it really hard to talk to people. Back when I was using it, it was rather limited and all there was was the manual written by Mark Overmars, which was not terribly good. It was tough to really even talk about how to do things.

 

I bought this for one of the boys last summer and he loves it. Well maybe not exactly this version you show here but whatever was out about 6 months or so ago. It was impressive that in a few weeks he had a game up n running complete with a shop to buy upgrades and multiple levels including boss battles. And all starting from nothing... zero game dev experience before that. So I think it has to be very good these days.

 

It's highly specialized and very good at what it does, make tile-engine and sprite-based video games without loads of visual effects that run on low-end hardware. I'm particularly interested in its implementation of networking, I always wanted to make a networked game with it but, I sucked so bad back then.

 

I'm somewhat surprised with their choice to only allow building executables with paid licenses. They are practically one of the last indie friendly engines with this approach. Fortunately my Humble Bundle purchase a few months back qualifies me for the reduced upgrade.

https://help.yoyogames.com/hc/en-us/articles/230330328-GameMaker-Studio-2-FAQ

 

Oh wow yeah version 2. I read about that coming but that is not the one I bought. So heck this should be extremely good. I guess the one I gave as a gift was one of the latest updates on version 1.

I'll need to have him take a good look at it and see if he thinks it would be worth upgrading.

 

I used to play with Game Maker, but in 2017 they're going to need to do a whole lot more than just playing catch-up to Unity in order to get my attention.

As far as I'm concerned Unity is the bar that an indie game engines needs to pass in order to be worth looking into.

It's like when Microsoft started making smart phones 10 years after Google and Apple. 10 years late and they expected to sweep the market and win over people from the competition despite not offering anything new.

Well, what does Game Maker do that Unity doesn't?

Cause I can name a WHOLE lot of things Unity has over Game Maker.

 

Significant higher ease of use for non programmers?

 

Ahh -Game Maker (used to be Game Maker Pro back then). I remember when I played around with it back when I was 12 years old. I could create top down zombie shooter and platformers but that was about it.

But I must say it's tools weren't bad: you could approach technical challenges differently (just like in Unity). E.g. character movement.

The only hard limitation it had was a 3D support. While it did have it, it was very hard to create something good in 3D.

Game Maker is more specialized in 2D games than 3D.

That's when I found Unity, although it would be few years later when I actually picked it up.

Have you used GameMaker? Because I used YouTube a lot and there were (and still are tons of tutorials)

Hotline Miami, Undertale and Hyper Light Drifter had no problems using Game Maker before 2.0 dropped.

 

It's always a matter of what software you are at ease with.
Game Maker 2 is more expensive than Unity Personnal Edition for mobile, and you can't mix 3D and 2D for maps or characters.GM advantage is the all in one 2D only interface and tools that will fit better to people that can't handle Unity interface.

I don't understand your point of jumping on Unity forums to show concurrent products ?
I wish you'll work your skills and succeed making good games instead of showcasing software

 

A person can use whatever they want to get the job done. I don't think everyone using GMS are unable to handle Unity. That implies a knowledge or skill level difference and from what I've seen Unity gets more first-time game devs than probably any other game engine. It could be an artistic level difference I suppose.

I'd say it's probably just being able to more naturally connect with the GMS workflows and all of the integrated tools would play a big part in that. In Unity as far as I know there still isn't a built-in tile map editor and engine. Of course, a person can build their own or use Tiled and write their own tileengine or get something from the store or simply not use tile maps at all. Basically GMS seems focused on rapid 2D game creation. But it just is a matter of personal preference.

Again people can use whatever they want. They can make anything as easy or as advanced as they want. Stardew Valley was created in C# and XNA. I am sure he could have used GMS or Unity to do it but he must have liked something better about the route he chose. Possibly preferring a more straightforward programming paradigm although for all we know he used composition and everything works similar to Unity in his dev environment.

 

From the looks of things it still very much requires code to do anything in 3D.

Yes, you can. It just doesn't hold your hand like Unity. Once you start working with 3D in code you need to start using code to bring 2D into the mix. Remember Unity's 2D is simply an orthographic camera instead of a perspective camera. Same thing for Game Maker. You set up a perspective camera when you need to render 3D and you set up an orthographic camera when you want to draw 2D.

 

It actually looks very straightforward though. The code reminds me of working with Direct3D in C++ a decade or more ago. Although much more simplified here. He made a simple 3D scene very quickly overall.

I think for 3D it'd make more sense to use Unity because it would most likely be even faster to create. At least initially. The GMS 2 approach could catch up and pass as the scope increases. Hard to say because he never showed importing, setting up & displaying (animated) models. Still think most people choosing GMS would be doing so for the very efficient 2D workflows.

 

I don't think GameMaker is going to step into 3D territory anytime soon (maybe in 4.0?) and that's not a bad thing! GameMaker is specialized in creating 2D games and its toolset pretty much remained the same (sprite creator, object creator, rooms etc.) Workflow has changed a bit, yet remains familiar (make sprite, make object, make room etc.). UI is flat and dark, which is a welcoming change (for my eyes).

Hehe, I bought it as well

To be frank, I want to make a game in GameMaker at some point in the future. Brings back good memories!

 

Sooo uhh.. Have fun?

 

It looks like he needs people to agree with him that Unity is to blame because he can't succeed making some games.

 

He's made games with Unity. Like most of us he's started many more than he's finished but he's completed at least one that I know of.

I think it's more that he was impressed with how GMS 2 is compared to how it was back when he used it which may have been the Gamemaker 8 days. And perhaps impressed with the streamlined workflows compared to alternatives especially the ones focusing more on 3D. So he wanted that to share that news.

From my time talking and working with him he is a sharp fella. A person doesn't have to suck, be "stupid", etc. to not find working in a given game engine appealing. lol

I wish we could talk here about game development in general and cover all engines and apis. I think the closed box environment does more harm than good. Whether someone is using C# & XNA, Assembly on a C64, Unity, GMS or any other option to make games I see it like we are all into the same hobby. All brothers and sisters in that sense.

 

You can discuss any software as much as you want on general game develoment forums, it's a neutral and lot better place to discuss that between developpers.

 

I know that. That's what I meant by doing it here. At the least to not come across like we are threatened or angered simply because someone is talking favorably about another product. Unity is a great game engine. Obviously. But in the end that is all it is just a product. One of many. It's the users that add the real value and my guess is that many of us here have an interest in other game dev products in addition to Unity.

While I don't think the forums filled with posts about every other game engine out there would be good... it would be good to be able to have a discussion once in a while talking about another game engine and even comparing it to Unity. Sticking our heads in the sand doesn't make the others go away and I think the Unity game engine is good enough to go head to head with most of them out there without needing us to take on a "fan boy" (or girl) attitude and defend it.

Again... not constantly but like this thread I find refreshing that it wasn't immediately just shut down "they have their own forums". I don't know about other people but when that happens I end up going to the other engine's forums and reading about it. And I could have done that right here.

 

Thanks, Gar.

I think it all comes down to "Haters gonna Hate".

 

And we don't?

There are threads like that all the time.

I mean even this thread has pretty civilized conversation, even though the original post was more interested in making a statement than actually starting a conversation.

 

I agree, when you are not happy with a product, you better leave and use software thats feets better your current project and you, without posting stupid posts
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/u...editor-that-comes-without-a-core-game.461717/

 

not to mention any game by vlambeer

 

There are threads all the time about Unity's limitations, the challenges of making 3D games for individuals, etc.

Seems to me if your goal is to make a game, you should take the quickest route to that destination with the least wasted energy. That is, if your goal is to get things done.

In my case, smaller and lighter is better. Less overhead is better. I owned GM years ago but it was too limited to do what I wanted. Now it seems like it is just about where I want it.

Also, Unity has much more than I need. And all of that overhead isn't free, in terms of complexity or dollars and cents.

So, whether you're a forum troll or not (as many here are) you have to appreciate the logic.

 

We appreciate the logic and I'm assuming that most of the people that chose Unity, chose it because it was a good fit, warts and all

And if Gamemaker is a good fit for you, go for it, I'm not seeing anyone telling you otherwise, if anything most people are posting more examples of Gamemaker being good.

 

I think it is better for Unity if we are allowed to talk about other engines here. When threads have been closed, I have done my research elsewhere, sometimes even become a part of the community of another engine.

If talked about here, it is as a part of the Unity community, it keeps me here, especially as I am likely to get views that are favourable to Unity.

 

There's probably not an easier way to make a 3D game for mobile than Unity.

 

I myself have used both Unity and GMS(and older versions too). In my opinion, for what it is meant for, GMS(2) works really well. Unity will have more "power" but if you are making a 2d maybe tile-based game, GMS is a much better fit in most cases. Exceptions would be cases where you want to have any 3d pieces, or if the particle system isn't good enough(and is frankly one of the things severely lacking in my opinion), or if the price turns you off. Unity has a full featured free version, so if you have zero budget and want to commercialize, GMS won't cut it right away. But I CAN vouch that for what it does, you can get things done a lot faster than with Unity.

The cheesy scripting language is actually good enough for most things as well, and you don't have some of the "downfalls" of something like C#. One of the biggest things missing from the script editor was any form of intellisense for your own variables, but that is something as well that got fixed for GMS2...pretty much anyway. I think if you have variables on an object it does intellisense showing that variable on the list even if it isn't yet declared. They may have done it on purpose though, as it isn't a bad idea to keep things the same all over when possible.

Of course, as mentioned by others, I would absolutely not(at least at this time) make a 3d game with GMS2. It isn't so much that it can't handle it, as I've seen some pretty nice things done with it. It is more the fact that there exists a better tool for that purpose, which is Unity. I'm a fan of using the best tool for the job.

 

Well, in regards to Unity, you still have to deal with the splash screen. That comes at its own cost.

The proprietary scripting language (GML) doesn't have the features of a real language like C#, but all you're doing is scripting a game. Hit points, keys for doors, win/loss conditions... you don't need a robust set of tools for that. In fact, it's interesting to note that a lot of Unity posts over the years were about a "lack of visual scripting tools"--which GMS comes with, that have been used to make countless games.

You would have to be crazy to try using GMS2 for a 3D game.

On the other hand, you would need to spend a few hundred dollars in Unity's asset store to get the functionality that GMS2 ships with, if you wanted to make 2D tile-based games with animated sprites, network connectivity built-in, pixel-perfect collision detection, etc.

GameMaker has come a long way. When I quit using it, it was a punchline, the games were "yours to sell" but it couldn't produce anything viable for the current marketplace. Then they introduced the web-player stuff and I though that was pretty dumb. Then they started porting to mobile and I was like... wow, they have really whored out GM. But now they've turned it into a respectable product, so they have my attention again.

 

Granted I haven't been around here much the past months just spurts here and there so maybe things have changed. It used to be every time there was a thread talking about any other game engine many posts seemed to project anger toward the OP and defend Unity so much little real discussion could be had and then ultimately each thread was locked usually with a final post similar to "they have their own forums". Granted there for a while there were so many UE threads like 2 to 3 every single week even I got tired of seeing them so that may well have a lot to do with it.

I agree this one is different... at least it is still open.

 

Exactly... that is all I was getting at above. I am surprised that you and I seem to be the only ones who remember the many other threads and how they ended up. lol

 

Only problem is I can't make tile based games because I can't draw in 2D :'(

I'm going to download it anyway because you're so convincing.

 

Here you go

 

Me either...even though I use GMS for 2d projects, I make "sprites" by pre-rendering 3d models. And you can get tiles from textures as well, sometimes with some modification to make them seamless. Or you can render the world all together, using multiple camera positions and patching the renders together. I like this art pipeline because I get to take advantage of all the neat stuff Blender has. Much of these things can't even be used when exporting 3d models for Unity because they don't get exported. But when the final product is a render, I can use almost anything Blender has as long as it fits the need.

 

If you can learn to do things in this manner, you can do really crisp graphics that can scale to any display size. I can still freehand and make some pretty spiffy looking stuff, but when it comes to tiles and terrain, you really want mathematical precision to avoid oddities when tiling.

 

Some of the best sprites come from 3D models rasterized and scaled-down. Blizzard has done this quite a bit, in the old days.Hand-drawn pixel art often invokes (on purpose or not) the feeling of old Nintendo games like Final Fantasy or Super Mario. Only recently has a distinctly different style of pixel art emerged, such as that seen in tons of games, with thin, featureless characters and very large pixels.

I personally love 3D rendered sprites for their gritty, hardened feel. Do well in games that want a sense of surrealism, a lot like claymation does in film.

 

GM2 is lacking in a praticle editor and a 2D character system based on capsule collision with slopes handling. On performance Unity handles well detailled resolution sprites like in Ori game, for GM2 we see lot of pixel games, i don't know if it can handle as well more complex 2D graphics.
Construct 3will be 99$ per year including all platforms publishing, it's a lot cheaper than GM2 if you want to publish to all platforms, GM2 is not so amazing.

 

All game engines need the magical feature allowing a person to quickly sketch an object (think of like stick figure ... child crayon style) and we get multiple quality versions auto generated. One of these days. I think before I am dead there will be some breakthrough along these lines for sure.

 

I know that even GMS1 could handle higher resolution graphics with lots of animation frames. The actual rendering pipeline isn't near as slow as people think. I'm working on an asteroids clone myself(barely getting started after doing some testing first). It will have asteroids 256x256 for sprites, with around 32 frames of animation, which is pretty extreme. On top of that though, I'm going to be using a normal mapping shader with real-time lighting. I don't mean the "sprited halo overlay" lighting, rather actual normal-map calculated lighting. If this topic doesn't get closed, I'll post screenies in a few days when I have something good to show.

About what it lacks....one of my biggest things is the particle system. Unity wins there hands down. I may end up creating my own particle system that would do things similar to what Unity has, like curves and gradients, instead of a maximum of 3 values to define parameters like color, speed, etc... I'd also add collisions, affectors, changers, and similar ilk that can come in handy for particle systems. The scripting language ends up getting converted to C++ if you use the right compiler(as opposed to the virtual machine language used for testing quite often) so I'm sure it can actually handle it.

 

Comparing GMS2 to Unity based on features like an advanced particle system, physics-based collision detection, etc. isn't really the point. GameMaker isn't about cutting-edge graphics, and I think that's where a lot of people get turned around. We've had more than our fair share of debates about who is/isn't making games, but the truth of the matter is that the GameMaker community members produce a lot more unique games than the Unity community does, and in my view not by any small margin. For every 10 Unity users I've talked to, maybe 2 are actually lone-wolf, one-man-army developers. The others do related work, such as art or music, or writing. In the GameMaker community, it always seemed like everyone was making their own game.

GameMaker is about an individual being able to create a game in a reasonable time frame, with a community to share it with. More recently, the products are somewhat commercially viable, with a few hits here and there. But that was never the point and I never saw this obsession with fame and money in that community, and pretty much zero toxicity, since everyone is a developer what goes around comes around in terms of feedback...

So yeah, if your criteria is you need ultra-high resolution graphics, real-time physics, particle effects, dynamic real-time shadows, best to just stick with U3D or UE, because while you can achieve some of those things in GMS2 there's no easy-button for doing them, it's not really geared that way.

If you want to make a game for people to play in a non-speculative, non-hypothetical way then that's when you might look at something like GMS2--to actually get it done.

 

Neither of those are restricted nor do they imply cutting-edge graphics. An advanced particle system could just be having more options available to control the particles before diving down into code and there have been many physics-based games that were solely 2D.

 

As a long time Unity user (since 2009) with a ton of time invested in assets, etc. I've already decided to change things up and use GameMaker for some 2D game ideas I'm playing around with.

When it comes to 3D I know Unity too well to switch to anything else, but I've never used it for 2D. I'm excited to work with a different tool set that offers new limitations and inspirations. Working with the same tools for years on end tends to stagnate one's creativity, and I'm happy to learn and enjoy something different.

 

Any good 2D engine should handle 2D high res sprites , 2D physics and particles without issues.Something like Game Maker should handle Pixel games like HyperLight Drifter as well as detailled games like Ori.