gamermaker "wads"

[Jodwin]

Maes said:

On the one hand, that is a Good Thing, as more people are drawn to a trade or a hobby.

I'm not sure that having hordes of Indian VB "software" "developers" flooding the market is a good thing. :x

As for Game Maker, it' not too different from Flash when used for games. You'll never have the full flexibility engine-wise, but if you're fine with making action games that feel like nothing special or RPGs or strategy games, there's really nothing wrong with it per-se. Especially if you don't embed all the resources into the exe. The scripting language in GM is shit but fully serviceable so the only limitations come from the engine side of things.

[Bucket]

Maes said:

Let me repeat it one more time: AAA games and Half Life require professional programming/computer artistry skills and experience with the HL editing tools, respectively.

This is not necessarily the case. There's a lot of junk HL mods out there. There's a lot of junk everything, actually. Junk indie games, junk phone apps, junk AAA titles... I get it. Gamemaker is not an illustrious medium for games. But the idea that "effort" is tied solely to the scope of a project is fallacious.

[Maes]

Bucket said:

I get it. Gamemaker is not an illustrious medium for games. But the idea that "effort" is tied solely to the scope of a project is fallacious.

Don't you notice that there's a correlation between skillset required and effort put in a project? In general, projects implemented with beginner tools tend to be lackluster, for reasons I already exposed. Someone without the skills to use more advanced tools and development techniques probably isn't among the top anything in his trade.

Suuuure, there might be the one-in-a-million VB genius or Gamemaker wizard, but even in that case, you'd wonder why he hasn't moved to a more advanced tool/platform, if he's indeed so talented. E.g. you never see a footballer talented enough to be playing in the A' league just ploughing away at D' league games, unless he fucked up big time.

That doesn't mean that ALL projects made with "advanced pro tools" are good, either. E.g. Big Rigs and War Z were made with "real" programming languages, but they are not any good ;-) But that's a different problem altogether, as with HL mods. Knowing how to use an advanced tool isn't enough to also give you design talents...but OTOH it's unlikely that you have genuine talent if you can't be assed to learn anything more advanced than VB or Gamemaker. E.g. I can't imagine a talented piano player who can only play sublimely on a 40-key cheapo electronic keyboard, but never master a full-size piano.

[Magnetick]

Well, I believe games in Game Maker (or any programming language or tool), are only as good as the developer behind them.

Game Maker doesn't really have how many limitations as you'd think, especially when you know how to use it's scripting language. I haven't used it in a few years, but it definitely works well, and could work as a neat stepping stone for more advanced game development.

[Maes]

Magnetick said:

Well, I believe games in Game Maker (or any programming language or tool), are only as good as the developer behind them.

And what are the odds that a realy GOOD team will choose Gamemaker as a tool? At what point it will start being an impediment to their products' performance/their creativity? And what are the odds that it will be chosen by talentless/wannabe devs, instead?

Magnetick said:

Game Maker doesn't really have how many limitations as you'd think, especially when you know how to use it's scripting language.

And there's your killer: most "real" (non-Gamemaker) games today work exactly by driving a complex "hard" C/C++ engine with a "softer" scripting language, e.g. Lua.

BUT, learning such a scripting language well enough (including Gamemaker's scripting language) requires education, tranining proficiency in general CS and game design well beyond what someone who hoped to make games with a few clicks is willing to acquire. YES or NO?

I don't doubt that there MIGHT be the oddball case of someone designing a really good game in Gamemaker, selling it successfully, and then moving on professionally. But was said guy a complete beginner who used Gamemaker as a stepping stone, or a seasoned, experienced developer who took it upon himself to showcase what the tool could do? And was it really less effort than using conventional development means, in his case?

[Da Werecat]

Maes said:

Knowing how to use an advanced tool isn't enough to also give you design talents...but OTOH it's unlikely that you have genuine talent if you can't be assed to learn anything more advanced than VB or Gamemaker.

You know, honestly, any game developer should use only homemade engines and tools to be taken seriously. Let's admit it already.

[Shadow Hog]

Jayextee said:

GameMaker isn't universally-bad.

http://youtube.com/watch.php?v=8wNTKzaZjho

Sure, it started as a Sonic fangame (with like, 99% original content). But this shows what's possible with such a 'limited' tool. It's an appealing prospect, not only for those who want to quickly click a 'herpaderp I done made a game' but people like Freedom Planet's creator, who have a multitude of skills but sadly not the aptitude for programming.

I'm actually an alpha tester for this game, and it's pretty kickass.

...but it's Multimedia Fusion 2, not Game Maker :V

Actually, that might be arguably worse, since it's purely event-driven; no scripting, no "else" blocks (I suppose every event is its own "if" statement), no "for" loops (although there's some rudimentary looping functionality), no nothin'. Game's still kickass, but he's going to have to do a port of the engine to an actual programming language if he wants it to exist anywhere other than Windows or WINE. (AFAIK, that's the plan - once the game's been out for a little while, to recoup some of the costs that'd require.)

[schwerpunk]

Da Werecat said:

You know, honestly, any game developer should use only homemade engines and tools to be taken seriously. Let's admit it already.

I don't mean to sound flippant, but this hasn't been the case since at least 1999.

[Da Werecat]

Looks like I forgot to put a smiley again. :)

[Bucket]

Maes said:

Don't you notice that there's a correlation between skillset required and effort put in a project?

There is no correlation. I probably put more effort into my megaWAD than the high-level programmers put into Aliens: Colonial Marines. My skillset is small; I just found a medium that already has what I can't do. Hell, this community at large is probably responsible for more quality gameplay hours than Unreal Engine 3.

Like I said - you're conflating effort with the scope of a project, and further confusing that with "skillset" as if all three just happen in equal measure.

[schwerpunk]

You know, if any one [or group] of us had created Aliens : Colonial Marines, I think we would be very impressed. Making a complete game, even a bad one, takes effort and skill. We aren't talking about Extreme Paintbrawl, here. I haven't played A:CM, so I won't comment too strongly on where it went wrong, but I'm guessing the gameplay designer(s) had some flawed starting premises, and ended up waylaying the whole team into misallocating (i.e. wasting) their time.

I guess my point is that talent + man-hours ≠ (automatically) a fun game. But at the same time, that doesn't mean that talent and effort did not go into the product.

Da Werecat said:

Looks like I forgot to put a smiley again. :)

Oh, derp on me. 'Honestly' in italics should've been a dead giveaway. :^)

[Maes]

Well, hic Rodi, hic salta. Call me when a decent FPS that is not a fucking joke a-la ZOG Nightmare is made with a FPS creator kit, and then we're talking.

[schwerpunk]

Maes said:

Well, hic Rodi, hic salta. Call me when a decent FPS that is not a fucking joke a-la ZOG Nightmare is made with a FPS creator kit, and then we're talking.

It's a good day, when I have to google the meaning of a phrase.

[Pencil of Doom]

Gamemaker is also used to make Mario games but i hate the difficulty they put in the games.
It's not only boring but also fustrating and makes me angry because i die a lot.