Game Maker

This PowerPoint is largely based on a PowerPoint created by..Edwin Pilobello for Saturday Academy

Got Game?

• Platforms
• Consoles/Cell Phones
• PC
• Classifications
• Core Halo, Call to Duty
• Casual Chess, Tetris
• Serious Medical, Educational, Military

Gaming Platforms

• Console
• Standard OS
• Game Pad Interface
• Licensing, Royalties

• PC
• Minimum Requirements
• Keyboard, Mouse, Game Pad
• Freeware, Shareware, Independent License

Gaming Genres

• Action Quake, Halo

“Twitch” games often rely on eye/hand coordination. They are usually fast paced and winning is based on the player’s reflexes.

• Strategy Starcraft, Age of Empires

Emphasizes logical thinking and strategic resource planning. Winning is based on critical decision making. Many are played by taking turns.

Gaming Genres

• Adventure Mist, Raven

Action with a story-line and puzzle solving. Winning takes action and inventory management.

• Role Playing Games (RPGS) WoWarcraft

Adventure with more reliance on character growth and development. There is Strategy because of some combat and management of reported statistics. Huge epic quests and fantasy with non-playing characters (NPC) are common.

Gaming Genres

• Sports NFL, Links, Nascar

Although realism is the goal of the game, fantasy is no exception. Single or team players (networked) give instructions or direct manipulation.

• Simulations Sim City

“God-games” where gamers build and manage cities, civilizations, traffic, etc. through realistic recreations of processes in the civil, animal or mechanical world

Gaming Genres

• Music/Aerobic Dance Revolution

Played using one’s feet stomping options on a dance mat.

• Puzzle/Classis Solitaire, Chess, Tetris

Casual games of leisure derived mostly from board, cards, trivia or tile games. Very profitable on cell phones.

Playing Perspectives

• First Person Deer Hunter
• Third Person Tomb Raider
• Top Down Solitaire
• Isometric Baldur’s Gate
• Flat, Side View Mario, Sonic
• Text-based Facade

Game Development Disciplines

• Programmer AI, Physics, Engine, etc.
• Art and Animation Character, Scene, etc.
• Game Design Game, Level, Writer
• Production Managers, Directors
• Quality Assurance non-tech Beta-testers
• Audio Engineers, Composers, Musicians
• Business and Legal Accountants, Lawyers

Making the Game

• Pre-production
• Begin with a story
• Story boarding
• World, Levels, Outcomes
• Creating the Character
• Putting the Character in motion/UI
• Designing Scenes
• Code
• Post Production
• Marketing

Sage Advice for “Indies”

• Remember: Game Play, Game Play, Game Play
• Be a devoted gamer.
• Study games. Innovate.
• Learn to write, learn to draw, otherwise, hire someone who does.
• Learn the process. Write lots of small games to start with.
• No bugs!

Sage Advice for “Indies”

• Have fun doing it. Get excited about your work.
• Get inspiration from everywhere, novels, movies, books, history, etc.
• Make levels rich in possibilities.
• Get the player lost in the game.
• Try to retain ownership of your work.

Sage Advice for “Indies”

• Make crystal clear specs/design document.
• Know the limits of your platform.
• Never give up, patience is the key.
• Pay for professional voice talent.
• Excite everyone to your game with a 5 minute talk and a 1 page sell sheet.
• Work with a tight well-balanced team.

Incentives

• $16.7 Billion Video Game sales for 2005
• Emerging Market: Cell Phones
• 180,000,000 units sold in 2005.
• Tetris and Bejeweled are in 30+% of all cell phones. Each earns over $60,000,000 a year in royalties.
• Casual 2D.
• Addicting game play is the key.
• Create your demo using Game Maker.

Incentives

• Untapped Market: “Chick” Games
• Estimated at 2x the Death and Destruction market. $32 Billion per year.
• Unlimited Market: Serious Games
• Custom order. Client advances capital.
• Expanded definition of “gaming” in architectural, medical, military, educational, legal, commerce, etc.

Got Game?

GENRES PERSPECTIVES

Action First Person

Strategy Third Person

Adventure Top Down

Role Playing Isometric

Sports Flat, Side View

Simulations Text Based

Music Aerobic

Puzzle/Classic

Next

• Today we’ll take a look at a Game Development platform called Gamemaker
• We will walk through some of the fundamental of Gamemaker.

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The First Screen

Today we’ll focus on building stage for the game. So putting things on a screen. Later we will show how to have them move and interact..

Sprites = Picture

Objects = Something on the game and

Rooms = The ‘Screen’

Sprites

• Sprite = picture
• It can’t do anything but look good
• Visual representation of game objects
• Any common drawing format (gif, jpeg, tiff, png, pnt, cut, etc.)
• Single image
• Sprite things beyond where we go today..
• Multiple image
• Animated explosions, walking
• Rotated

Adding Sprites

• Click “Pacman” on the menu bar or
• Select Create Sprite from the Resources Menu or
• Use Ctrl-Alt-S keyboard shortcut

Sprite Properties

This is where you name the sprite.

Use the following naming convention.

spr_NameOfSprite

Use this to find pictures you can use for your sprite

Use this to change the sprite.

Size, color, …

Not super powerful editing, but you can modify the image

Origin.

(0, 0) is the top left corner of the image. This is used for placing the image on the screen

Sprite Example

Loaded a picture for the sprite

Picture of image.

You can click on this picture to change the location of the origin.

Shows the size of the sprite

This has only one image. Some sprites have several images that it will cycle through.

Click OK when done

This shows a image of the sprite with name

Sprite Properties: Starter Recommendations

Remove Precise collision checking

Precise collision checking slows the computer

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Center the Origin from the Upper-Left corner

Extra: Consider Bounding Box settings or use an Object Mask (specially for animated sprites)

The bounding box is used to determine when you bump into something (have a collision.)

You will need to go to each of the sprites and set the Bounding Box for each sprite.

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Keep Transparent background

Change the Name

Spr_nameOfSprite

Your turn. Make a sprite using the Blue Ball image found in the (C:\Program Files\Game_Maker7\Sprites\maze) folder.

Extra: Edit Sprite

• Can use any paint or graphics program
• Transform functions
• Mirror, Flip, Rotate, Scale, Stretch, etc.
• Images functions
• Cycle, Colorize, Shift Hue, Crop, etc.
• Animation functions
• Expand canvas, shift image for center of rotation
• Counter-clockwise Rotation
• Number of Images = 360 / degrees of rotation
• Initial image must face RIGHT
• Advantage of Game Maker Registered Version

Quick Review

• Sprite = picture
• Pacman shortcut
• Load a picture
• Name spr_thename
• Now onto objects
• Object = Something on the screen
• Room = The screen

Object = Three main parts

1. A sprite. This is the image it will have on the screen.
2. Events that make the object react.
• An object is created
• A key is pressed
• A collision with another object
• A click of the mouse
• …
3. Actions related to the events.
1. How the object moves when a key is pressed,
2. or it runs into a wall,
3. or when a mouse is clicked, or…

Object: How to ..

I’ll make a ‘Rock’ object using the spr_rock sprite.

You make an object with your sprite

Click on the blue ball or Resources -> Create Object or ctrl-alt-O

Use the sprite you created earlier

Tying a sprite to the object

Select the sprite: Click to the pull down menu to the right of the <no sprite> to see the sprites available in this game and select the sprite you want to use for this object

Name the Object using the following naming convention.

obj_nameForYourObject

i.e. obj_rock

Check visible if you want to see it.

Check solid for walls etc.

Depth: The lower number in the Depth, the more ‘upfront’ and object is. So if two objects go past each other on the screen, the object with the lower depth number will go over the object with the larger depth number.

Objects with the same depth are shown based on when they are created.

Check persistent if this object will exist when you go to different levels (rooms). Like a main character.

Events and Actions

• Now that the object has an associated sprite you need to give it some personality.
• The next section will describe how to have the object react.
• It takes two pieces
• Picking events to react to
• Defining the actions they will take when the event occurs.

Events

1) Start by double clicking on the object. (obj_rock in this example)

This window will show the events as you define them for your object

This window will show the actions associated with whichever event is currently selected.

Click here to start defining an event.

Events (cont.)

Create: Defines what the object will do when it is created. Example: Have it moving in a direction.

Destroy: What happens when the object is destroyed.

Here is the Event Selector menu that lists possible events. Included are a few brief descriptions.

Step: When happens during each step of the game. Steps happen several times a second so often this event includes some random action. Like having a 1 in 100 chance of an enemy appearing.

Collision: This is used to define how the object will react when hitting other objects. For example. Stopping when it hits a wall, getting points when it collides with a treasure, making a noise when it collides with a bell,…

Mouse: Reacting to Mouse clicks (Left, right, middle, wheel, …)

Other: Several events. Will often use the ‘Boundary’ event to destroy objects when they leave the boundary of the game.

Events (Cont.)

Keyboard: Reacting to when a key is pressed and as long as it is being held down it will continue to do the actions associated with the key being pressed. (Think machine gun)

Key Press:

This event occurs when a key is pressed, but only one time.

(Think rifle)

Key Release

This event occurs when the key is released. (Rifle)

Review

• Sprite= Picture
• Room = The screen
• Object = Something on the screen
• Basic parts of an object
• Associated Sprite
• Events the object will respond to
• Actions the object will take when the associated events occur.
• Next we will look at a few of the actions available

Event overview

Too many events?

• We’ll take a little closer look at the move events then look at an example of having he rock controlled by the keyboard.

Actions:Move

• Move Fixed : Give it a direction and speed for moving. (This is the action we will use for the rock)
• Move Free: Give it direction and speed.
• Move Towards: Pick object, and speed.
• Speed Horizontal: Sets the horizontal speed.
• Speed Vertical: Sets the vertical speed.
• Set Gravity:
• Reverse Horizontal: Good for when you run into a boundary
• Reverse Vertical
• Set Friction:

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Events: Jump

• Jump to Position: Give an (x,y) coordinate
• Jump to Start
• Jump to Random
• Align to Grid
• Wrap Screen: Allows you drive run off of one side of the screen only to reappear on the other side of the screen
• Move to Contact
• Bounce:

Example: Rock, Hit Key, Move

1) Double click on the rock object

2) Click on ‘Add Event’

Keyboard Event

Click on Keyboard

Select <Left>

Pick Action

1) Select the ‘move’ tab

2) Drag and drop the ‘Move Fixed’ icon into the Actions window.

Pick your Direction

Select the direction for the object to travel. Since we are attaching this action to when the left arrow is clicked, select the left arrow.

Pick a speed. We’ll start with 5. If you want faster, pick a high number.

Leave ‘Relative’ unclicked.

Review and check

• Sprite = Picture
• Room = Screen
• Object = Something on the screen
• Parts of an Object
• Associated Sprite
• Events to respond to
• Actions associated with the Events
• Your turn: Create an event and associated action for having the object move right when the right arrow is pressed

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Rooms

• Now you have a Rock sprite
• You have created a Rock object using this sprite.
• You have created two events (Left arrow hit, Right arrow)
• You have associated two actions to the events (Move left and move right)
• Now it’s time to make a Room.

Add a Room

Click on the White Box

Or

Resources -> Create Room

Or

Ctrl-Alt-R

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Click on the Pull down menu and select the obj_rock object.

Adding Objects to the Room

Left click where you want the Rocks to show up

Right click on the objects to remove them.

Review

• Sprite = Picture
• Object = Something on the screen
• Associated sprite
• Events to respond to
• Actions associated with the events
• Room = Screen
• You now have enough for a basic, although not terribly riveting, game.
• You have a rock that will move left and right based on keys that are pressed.

Running the game

Click on the green triangle or

Run -> Run normally or

Hit F5

Game

Hit the ‘esc’ key to end the game.

What happens when it gets to the sides?

What other movement would you like to add to the rock?

Now ..

• Create a brick sprite, brick object and use the brick objects to make walls.
• Create collision events so that when the rock hits the wall object it stops horizontal direction
• Create a maze
• Add events and actions needed for the Rock to be able to go through the maze.
• Test the rock going through the maze
• Pushes
• Add features to the game
• Find other images for sprites. GIFs, Pac man, ..
• Monsters
• Secret walls
• Battles
• Treasures

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