A bit of spit and polish

Posted by Astryl on Oct. 21, 2011, 11:28 a.m.

I refuse to post a screenshot of my game, because it needs to be a surprise. I'll just say two things: The game's complete enough that I can just make levels and treasures now, and that I scared the hell out of myself and two people while playing it earlier on.

Otherwise, I noticed some interesting functionality I actually knew nothing about in Game Maker 8 (It's in 8.1 too).

If you hold down CTRL and right-click on an instance in a room, you access a very useful menu, specifically the Instance Creation Code. I used it to great effect with the messages left in the game.

Also, the Send to Back and Bring to Front options are handy, not to mention Lock.

And there I was thinking I'd seen everything GM 8 had, and there goes my last reasons to upgrade to GM8.1. (The instance creation code was the only feature I really wanted from GM8.1, but…)

Comments

sirxemic 13 years, 1 month ago

I believe that was even in GM5.

Alert Games 13 years, 1 month ago

It was in game maker for a long time, but it is a pain in the ass to use tbh. They should improve the UI for the room editor and object editors.

For example, when not using D&D, you should have a codebox attached to the object for each event instead of a D&D panel.

And for rooms they should have a way to select objects and view the code easily, instead of all this right-click hold ctrl shift enter a b up down up down left right power button. (maybe an exaggeration)

But that also goes with my argument that there should be layers based on the objects depth so that you can select the right ones. especially for making 3d games.

I should write a nice email to them.

Astryl 13 years, 1 month ago

There's a lot of functionality they should add to GM, for programmers like us, but… they won't. Not with them going and marketing to 12 year olds. Bah.

Alert Games 13 years, 1 month ago

:(

programmars*

Astryl 13 years, 1 month ago

Quote:
Don't call yourselves pros if you guys are still using Game Maker. Do what Mega did and move on to a different programming language.

I still use GM a lot. Mostly because I'm still wrestling with Hydra, and cursing at LWJGL. NEVER try to use an API if you don't have the documentation…

EDIT: Also, GM is handy for testing sprites before using them in Hydra =P