Pipe Dreams
I’ve not vanished again. Far from it.
Lately I have been learning C#, and dabbling with Game Maker 7 on and off. I’m planning to pick up enough C# to move to XNA then start putting together some simple games for windows. If all goes well I’ll probably pick a license up for the Xbox side of things and try my hand at that.
As I mentioned, while I’m learning C# I am also playing around with a few projects using various ‘game making’ software available around the internet, mainly Game Maker right now but I also have a point-and-click style project planned for Adventure Game Studio too.
Game Maker is a perfect program for the hobbyist game maker. The software features lots of drag and drop commands making it fairly easy to jump in with both feet and start knocking basic games together. After following the tutorials provided on the Game Maker homepage (http://www.yoyogames.com/) you should be able to put together simple top-down shooters and platform games in no time. For a glimpse at the sort of things Game Maker is capable of, take a look through the submitted games section – http://www.yoyogames.com/browse
Ignore the numerous Pokemon clones, Mario rip-offs, Metroid-em-up submissions and you will find some pretty decent games. Spelunky is a good example of the type of quality you can obtain from Game Maker with the appropriate work and dedication. According to the games site, the creator is porting it over to XNA for release on the Xbox 360 Live Arcade section which should give hope to any armchair enthusiast. Best of luck Derek, hope Spelunky does well!
The other program I have been briefly playing around with is the Adventure Game Studio. I’ve barely scratched the surface of this so I cant offer much information right now but as soon as I get more into it I will post some updates. Again, you can find plenty of examples of what is possible using this software in the submitted game section. The games submitted by Yahtzee (ZeroPunctuation) are well worth checking out for a good idea of what is possible with AGS.
