spacemonkey

Let me also point out that Game Maker's abilities can't really be judged by looking at 95% of what the Game Maker community produces. No offense to anyone whot hinks they may fall into that category but it is true. Game Maker has an amazing game-building base and can provide a very pragmatic and detailed designer the tools with which to create a commercially recognizable game. I say you can't jusge the program's ability by looking at 95% of the community's games because 95% of the community can't buld a decent game compared to what Game Maker can accomplish. The games (or programs) people produce with Game Maker depend solely on the designer(s) behind the project. I believe anyone can agree with that -- for any piece of development software. Most of the users of Game Maker fall into the program's target users - people who have little to no programming knowledge who, more than likely, experiment with the program for a few days, make some simple childish game, and then uninstall Game Maker from their system.

If you are having problems while running the software, a number of possibilities are out there. there could be certain compatibility issues with your video card, if you've got one, and if you don't then that could very well be the problem. This problem would also depend on how many other programs you are running simultaneously and how much CPU power each of them requires (in other words - how much memory). Also, if by some very minute chance you obtained the software illegally, the executable or other software components could be corrupted or otherwise contaminated by a trojan or other type of virus. I would recommend scanning the program's directory with a virus scanner first, if not your whole hard disk. Then I would check to see if any other programs are running. You might also try to obtain Spybot Search & Destroy and scan your computer with that and eliminate spyware if it exists on your computer. If none of those work, I would simply suggest re-installing a fresh, clean copy of the program into a different directory than you did the first time. At least then you'll know if it was just a bad install or there is some other underlying problem.

You do have to guess sometimes, and that is where it becomes frustrating. Occasionally a set of blocks will be isolated by mines and you can't see what's going on in there, and you just have to guess. However, I will say that it is quite possible to determine certain situations and make an educated guess (based on the numbers and where mines would satisfy them). But, I shall reiterate: it isn't always 100% visibly solvable.

I use Spybot Search & Destroy as well as Javacool Spyware Blaster. Spyware Blaster prevents bad or unwanted ActiveX controls from being installed on your computer, as well as other types of spyware. I do not use Ad Aware because for some reason I thought I heard something about how it uploads your browsing and computer information to their server sytematically. Thanks, but no thanks. I really don't want information about my system being transmitted without my knowledge. Spyware Blaster is a good preventive measure towards spyware and adware. I would highly recommend it -- even if you're using Ad Aware and Spybot S&D already. You don't even have to have the program running for it to be doing its job. Best of all -- it is free. Though you can purchase a version that automatically updates itself, but that's not necessary since all you have to do is click a button.

I completely agree with this post. When Medal of Honor first came out, sure - it was great. It did a lot of stuff that games didn't do before it. But it was made by Electronic Arts. They really don't have a lot of first person shooters under their belt and it wasn't a game that could hold up against other developers. It just didn't feel right when you played the game, it seemed... too cartoonish. Call of Duty, however, blows Medal of Honor out of the water in my opinion. The graphics are basically convincing (you do have to take into account that they can only make it look SO real). The gameplay was solid, the sound effects were very detailed as well as many textures and other visuals in the game. Everything was well thought out, and the concept that you always fought with other members of your squad was great. I also enjoyed how you played different soldiers from different countries -- truly innovative. Replayability is what Call of Duty's got -- and that's where Medal of Honor really falls short.

Timesplitters? Future Perfect? I have never heard of either of those games. You say they are action first person shooters.. can you provide me with a link so I can see for myself? Or maybe just some general information about either of the two you mentioned would suffice.

pikaz is correct. Too many people will have fresh ideas for your one idea to be purchased by a game developer. If the company wanted an idea for a game they'd simply distribute some sort of online or other type of survey to the public for a significantly lower cost. This way they get a handful of fresh ideas PLUS an idea of what people are generally looking for in terms of gaming innovations. Companies DO hire people for logistics. Usually a game developer will create a small to medium-sized focus group that will brainstorm for days to sometimes years writing miscellaneous code, testing ideas, sampling the public with surveys, etc. However, these focus groups usually contain people who are experienced in some way such as programming or modelling. This way, the ideas presented are usually feasible and the group as a colelctive has a general idea of what will be possible and what will not - both in terms of bringing the game to a functional point and/or based on what kind of resources the company has. Your best bet for what you want to do is simple: make yourself useful by learning SOMETHING and being CREATIVE.

It does, in fact, come with Windows XP. The basic graphical layout has been re-done, making it a little easier to see what's going on. But still, the problem remains that there is no guarantee of winning each game that is presented. Since the mines are placed completely randomly, there is no way that each game will be solvable. Microsoft should really incirporate some sort of algorithm -- at least for the corners of the playing field. If a mine is totally isolated in a place where you can see no numbers that could possibly give away its position, it shouldn't be placed there. That would more than likely be too much of a hassle to code for Microsoft though, and I'm sure that not enough people would care for it to matter in the first place. It is actually pretty sad that I care, heck, it is sad that I am even typing this in the first place.

Also, you should point out the different types of classes in CSS. A "Generic" class is the type of class that you have used in your tutorial, it can be applied to any HTML element: .verdana_class { font-family: Verdana; font-size: 8pt; color: #FF0000;}<table class="verdana_class"><tr><td>blah</td></tr></table> A "Tag Level" class can only be applied to a certain tag that you identify. This way, you can use the same class name, but make it tag-specific in order to apply different formatting where needed. An example: div.verdana_class { font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt; color: #FF0000;}span.verdana_class { font-family: Verdana; font-size: 10pt; color: #00FF00;}<div class="verdana_class">This is red Verdana text</div><span class="verdana_class">This is green Verdana text</span>I should also mention that new standards are being created in which every tag must be lower case, so: BODY { text-align: left; }should become: body {text-align: left; } A good reference for HTML and CSS tags can be found at http://www.htmldog.com/.

Well, if you have no programming language skills and really don't want to bother buying a book or two or taking some courses in order to learn them thoroughly, I'd recommend Game Maker. It has the capability of letting you create a game without writing a single line of code. At the same time, however, it has a built-in programming language that is very easy to learn, and very powerful. So once you get comfortable using the software, you can use the programming language to have complete control over your game with endless possibilities. Game Maker does support the creation of 3-Dimensional games, but you're obviously not going to get the same quality as commercial games. Best of all, it is free and there are no restrictions on whether you sell your game that you create.

Yes, Minesweeper is very old and very outdated, but it IS very addicting ... especially when you've got nothing else to do. It is a quick brain teaser, and it keeps me entertained minimally, which is sometimes good enough.

I remember back when I was in high school, I'd be sitting in math and I'd get bored. I ended up making a fireworks program that displayed random firework animations and then a giant finale ending, it was pretty neat.I also made a math program that calculated all sorts of equations for you. Distance, surface area, trig and inverse trig functions, I even had a built in function that would let you find the derivative of an equation. among other things, i also had a one, two, and three variable equation solver, as well as temperature conversion from kelvin, to fahrenheit, to celsius and every combination in between. Very handy, especially on Calculus tests.I think I may have lost the source code to that program, but if anyone wants me to, I can try to find it.

Usually I experiement a lot with my games privately, I have never released anything really major. This is partly because I find I was too ambitious and thought I had more free time than what I actually did, or I lost interest. Losing interest is my main problem - I either get new ideas very quickly or don't take the time needed to learn some tools necessary to make a decent mod (primarily mapping or modeling tools).I did do some heavy modifications to Duke Nukem 3D back in the day, even though I was pretty young at the time (about 12 or so, maybe 13) I actually came up with some pretty cool stuff. I never really released any of that.After that I moved on to Quake and screwed around with that for a while. It was almost too complicated for me at the time, but that didn't stop me from attempting to make some multiplayer mods. Now it is outdated, so I guess I'll never know if I could have finished those projects or not.I dabbled very, very lightly in Half-Life. It was very complex for me at the time and seemed to big for me to handle.Now I am starting to sift through the Half-Life 2 source code, and although it is still somewhat complex, I am having an easier time grasping the overall design of the game. It will take time before I can make something actually useful and original, though.

mother *BLEEP*ing piece of *BLEEP* did it to me again, this thing needs to rot in hell

For those of you who are familiar with Minesweeper, let me just say hello, and I feel for you...this damn game is the most idiotic piece of *BLEEP* that i have ever given my time to. it is highly addicting but the expert level, while i think it is not really that hard, is sometimes nearly impossible to beat due to you having to friggin guess where the damn mines are. how am i supposed to win when i have nothing else to do but guess, and then uh oh, looks like i picked the wrong square.. how the hell could i have known where that damned mine was, there is no way... what in the hell.... there should at least be some sort of hint or something that you can use once every game, i dunno... just seems like it's not fair AT ALL if you have no idea where to click...i played for an hour and one ONCE because of this. the "forced guess." SCREW THE FORCED GUESS. SCREW IT.

I would agree that Call of Duty is definitely the best World War II game I have played so far. It was really awesome playing through it the first time, and then after I beat it, going through again on harder difficulties and then adding various modifications to experience it differently. Truly well-polished, enjoyable game.The multiplayer has been somewhat slow for me, I have a good computer and a DSL connection, but on servers with more than 32 players it starts getting a little ridiculous. I think all the lag may partly be attributed to the kill-cam, as essentially, it is recording everything that is ocurring until you die, and that is for each of the 32 players (unless the server has the kill-cam disabled).Other than that, one of the greater games I have purchased.

Thank you for this information. I have been using Firefox for about a month and the pages would load so slow, but this helped a whole lot. Of course, do you think that 100 requests would affect the server the browser is trying to reach? That could potentially be a pain for someone if that is what is happening.

For the longest time I used Notepad for all of my HTML/Javascript/CSS needs. It was all that I needed, I didn't need extra bells and whistles (and a big chunk out of my hard drive). But for the past month or so, I have been using TextPad, and I have to say that it is worthwhile. It is capable of compiling and running Java apps, but I really don't need that since I already have Borland JBuilder X. I use TextPad primarily now because I can view what my work looks like with one click on the toolbar. A lot of HTML development programs have this feature, but TextPad is only a few megabytes rather then 30 or 40, and it gets the job done quickly, efficiently, and cleanly.

Actually, most C++ books I have seen are quite large, and unless you just pittle through the book without actually learning anything, then I would say you are incorrect. At the very least you are right about perhaps creating a whole, completed game in 3D taking longer, I would partially agree with you on that because someone might want to create a very large game and that could take a while. However, a 3D example could only take a few hours to create perhaps, but not more than a day. Furthermore, you can't expect a game-making program aimed at beginners to allow you to create fantastic 3D games as well as a mainstream programming language like C++. You're comparing apples and oranges, in my opinion. I have been using Game Maker for a while, I own a registered copy of Game Maker 6.0. I have seen my fair share of "game-creating" programs out there to help people make games with ease, but I must say that Game Maker has the closest balance between programming flexibility and beginner usability (if that's a word). Not only does GM allow you to program in GML (which is very similar to java or C), it also has a visual drag-and-drop programming system that is very useful and very easy to use. Both of these methods combined allow you to create anything you can think of with ease. There are basically no limitations to what you can do with GM, no limit on what type of game, no limit on how big it is, and most importantly - no limit to what you can do with your completed game. Even free users of GM are allowed to sell their games that they create. All in all, I'd say Game Maker is at LEAST worth checking out. If you don't know where to start, there is lots of help available at the forums (http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/). I think the current registration fee is ~$18, and let me tell you that even though that seems somewhat steep, it is worth it.

I am an IT major in college, and the previous semester I had my first experience with Java. It was actually pretty easy, and the IDE we used was simple enough. JBuilder X is what I currently have on my computer, and it was what I learned Java with. It is a good environment. It can sometimes be somewhat slow, but the environment is highly efficient in detecting syntax and compatability errors. Also, I found that debugging my code with JBuilder was amazingly simple. I could go through hundreds of lines of code one at a time if I wanted to, and go as deep into the language as I desired -- just to see exactly what was going on. This was very useful for detecting bugs and/or errors in my work before I turned it in for a grade. I'd say go with Borland JBuilder X, it is very stable and you will never regret using it.

DictionarySearch 0.7 - This extension looks up a selected word in an online dictionary. You can even customize what online dictionary you want it to use.Bandwidth Tester 0.4.1 - This utility will test the bandwidth of your current internet connection and give you a graph of the results. Not really a necessity, just something interesting to look at every now and then.ColorZilla 0.8.2 - This is a pretty advanced utility that allows you to use an eyedropper tool on any part of the screen to extract the RGB and hex values of the selected color. It is also able to zoom the page you are currently viewing.All-in-One Gestures 0.12.4 - Allows you to hold the right mouse button and drag a design on a page, and will execute a command based on your movements. Really handy for going forward and back in your visited page history, among other things.

Ordering pizza while playing Everquest II. Go figure. The really scary part of this notion is the fact that it will probably sell. I personally despise RPGs because of the level of commitment needed to enjoy them. Don't get me wrong, I respect people who have the patience to play these games, but I can't see why I would spend all of my free time to build up some character to run around with.At any rate, the reason this is so scary to me is the fact that a lot of people who play Everquest II probably play it non stop for hours and hours. I had a friend who played it for 14 hours straight one time. If you think that sounds really unhealthy, try throwing in the ability to order a pizza in less than 5 minutes without even getting up.And the United States wonders why every other person is obese. All that matters to people is money, not the health of consumers. And if they are concerned about consumer health, it is just to attract attention of those people who are trying to "eat healthy" or something to make... more money.

I was never really a fan of the original Counter-Strike, I was more of a Team Fortress Classic or Day of Defeat guy. However, I still gave Counter-Strike many, many chances to entertain me -- all of them were unsuccessful. My main issue with Counter-Strike is the round-based system it uses. Fight for a minute or two, someone could get a lucky shot... and then you sit and wait for 4 or 5 minutes to do this again.I do admire what this game has accomplished in terms of popularity and strengthening the Half-Life community, but I can't bring myself to enjoy it.When Half-Life 2 was released, and shortly thereafter, Counter-Strike: Source, I thought: "Well, maybe this is going to be improved." I was correct. Sort of.Yeah, the egine was updated, and yeah, there are some new things.. but it is basically the same thing. VALVe (creators of Half-Life) created the Source engine, the Countr-Strike development team threw it into their game, and that was about it. I see basically the exact same game I saw a few years ago running on the HL1 (Quake) engine.So, nothing changed: Counter-Strike is the same. I still don't like it.

I bought Splinter Cell when it was still relatively new. I had a pretty good graphics card, an ATI 9000 if I remember correctly. I only had a few problems with it besides the occasional lag. The story was somewhat bland and cliche to me, it has been a while since I have played this game, but that's what I remember my first reaction being. Also, I couldn't really get into the slow pace of the action.. and while there were lots of cool things I could do to interact with the environment, it just wasn't the right kind of pace for me. It was a little slow; maybe I could even go so far as saying a little too realistic.In the end, it was enjoyable but I haven't played it since. So I can safely say that, for me, this game was not worth what I paid for it.As far as Pandora Tomorrow or Chaos Theory is concerned: I will more than likely stay away from them. I'm not a fan of Splinter Cell and it looks like the developers are taking this series in the direction that was established by Splinter Cell.