It’s something even an artist without former programming experience can pick up and use. It’s pretty easy to grasp, syntax rules are very leeway, documentation isn’t written in Klingon and there are many tutorials available. It’s easy to learn: GM was designed as a teaching tool and it shows. It doesn’t matter that much when you have budgets in the tens or hundreds of thousands, but for a small indie developer, paying over thousand bucks for Unity and a few plugins, just to try it out, may be a big deal. It’s cheaper than pretty much any other commercially-viable engine. I assure you that when I was working on Phantasmat, using a much faster custom-built engine, I still couldn’t slap everything I wanted on the screen without any considerations for the lower-end hardware. Which is something you have to consider in any commercial game, regardless of the engine. Most of the slowdowns can be solved with simple optimisations and more responsible memory use. It’s easy to just include all the art assets within the project, draw them all on the screen with tons of particles and then complain that it slows down and uses too much RAM. I think part of the problem is that GM is very simple to use and it’s tempting to be lazy. I never really felt like I have to cut something cool out to prevent framerate drops. They both easily maintain 60fps, even on netbooks or older hardware. I consider ArcMagi and Cinders to be relatively pretty games, with plenty of effects, particles, cool transitions and such. Nice art is usually more important than pure tech-prowess here.
You can check out gigabit ethernet cards for mac os x that provides high performance shared storage for networking solutions. You generally want them to work on older machines, as it’s a big chunk of the indie audience. But let’s be honest - most commercial 2D games don’t need to be cutting-edge. Of course, if you want to make something very technically-advanced, you probably would be better off writing your own engine. It’s more than capable for most 2D projects. Performance is a-okay: I often hear that GM’s performance is its biggest issue. Not having to learn new tools for each project saves a lot of time. Meanwhile, GM can be used to make arcade shooters, complex RTS, platformers, visual novels or any experimental game you have on your mind. Even custom-built engines are usually done to meet needs of a particular game or genre. It’s a huge advantage over the more focused game creation tools like Ren’Py or RPG Maker. It’s very flexible and pretty capable: Think about any 2D game you like. But - well - you need to pay that programmer and spend months on developing the framework first. Of course, a skilled C++ programmer can work similarly fast in a good framework. Working as in: fully playable, with complete mechanics and already looking somewhat pretty. At Codeminion, I sometimes found it faster to show the programmer what I want using a GameMaker prototype, than to describe it and go through several feedback loops.īeing able to develop fast is crucial when you have to worry about budgets and deadlines. During the DBC game jams I was able to create working projects in only a couple of hours.
With YoYo Games trying to attract more serious developers with the release of GM HTML5 and the upcoming GM Studio, I thought it could be interesting to do a little rundown of the good and the bad in the software from the perspective of someone trying to utilize it for commercial work.įast development: This was always the main advantage of GameMaker and other similar tools for me.
GameMaker is a rather popular tool among amateur and freeware developers, but you rarely see it used to produce commercial-quality games like slots online uk, so there aren’t many publications on how it fares in professional game development. We’ve had some good times together, but there were times when I considered filling divorce papers and turned my head after the younger and sexier Unity. I’ve developed a certain love-hate relationship with the software. Sometimes simply to play around with ideas, but mostly for commercial projects and some rapid prototyping back during my days at Codeminion. It’s no secret that most of MoaCube’s projects are developed in GameMaker. I’ve been using it for 7 years now. Parent.By TeeGee Professional developer’s look at GameMaker