Making A Simple Platformer In Game Maker. A tutorial.

[Spudd 0]

Tutorial: Making a simple platformer in Game Maker.

 

(I know this is a tutorial, but it's directly linked in with Game Development, so I wasn't sure which forum to post it in. I hope this is okay.)

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This tutorial is for anyone looking for a way to make their own computer game; more specifically, platformers. It is seriously basic stuff, but it should help get you started in the world of Game Maker.

 

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First off, if you're going to use Game Maker, you should know what it is. Game Maker was made in 1999 by a guy named Mark Overmars, and is one of the most popular pieces of game development software for amateurs due to it's easy to use coding language and interface. It's great for people with no programming background to use when they want to get their toes wet with game design.

 

First things first, you need to have Game Maker to start. You'll find the download here:

 

http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker

 

You can get the pro edition which comes with some extra features for $20, but you won't need it to make games, nor will you for this tutorial.

 

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Once you've got that installed, open it up, and proceed to the main screen. It should look like this: http://i32.tinypic.com/28itfe0.png

 

For starters, lets get the graphics out of the way. Click the icon in the bar towards the top of the screen that looks like a red pac-man. You'll end up here:

 

http://i29.tinypic.com/10xstvr.png

 

Now for the fun part. Where it says "sprite0,"enter a name for the sprite. It's a good idea to use the prefix 'spr_' in sprite names, so that if you happen to have an object and a sprite with the same name, you won't run into problems. You can name it "spr_player," or whatever else you want. I will assume you called it spr_player for the remainder of the tutorial, so do remember what you called it if you went with something else. Once you have the name out of the way, click "Edit Sprite." You will then see a green square in the middle of the new window, that is the sprite the game will use for the player. Now you certainly don't want a green square to be your character, do you? Of course not. So double click it, which brings you to a window that should feel a lot like MS Paint. From there, you can draw your protagonist. Or you can simply copy and paste one of the sprites listed later in this topic if you're feeling lazy. When you're done, click the green checkmark button in the upper left. Once you're back at the main sprite screen, uncheck the box that says "Precise Collision Checking," having this turned on can cause some issues with our platforming code later, depending on the sprite you chose. When that's taken care of, you can click "OK" if you're done, you can always bring this back up to make changes by double clicking the sprite's name in the list on your left.

 

Create a second sprite now, and name it "spr_enemy," (Or whatever else you like) this will be our enemy sprite in case you hadn't already guessed. You'll do pretty much the same thing as you did for your player sprite, so just repeat the steps listed in there if you forgot anything.

 

And we come to our third sprite. We need to make a goal that the player must reach in order to complete the level. I'm pretty sure most platformers have those. anyhow, I'll assume you called that one "spr_goal," but again, you can name it anything.

 

Now you'll need some sprite for the ground. You will follow similar steps, but there are some things to keep in mind. You want the ground sprite to fill up the whole image, so that you can have them side by side with no breaks. The problem with this is that Game Maker automatically sets the transparent color to the color of the bottom left pixel. This can present a problem if you don't take that into consideration. So once you're done with that sprite, make sure you uncheck the box on the sprite properties window that says "Transparent."

 

So you have the sprites you need all set for now, you can start on coding these objects. Most tutorials will have you start off with a nifty little feature Game Maker has called "Drag and Drop," which allows you to simply drag the icons that tell your object what to do into the window and start testing. I am not going to show you how to do it that way, however. Once you get started on D&D, it'll be very difficult for you to switch to using the code later, and coding gives you so much more freedom. So let's get started. Now you can click that icon in the top that has a little blue sphere, this is the object icon. You'll be using objects for pretty much everything, you can't have a game without those. After clicking that icon, you should have a window that looks like this:

 

http://i31.tinypic.com/ht5q8p.png

 

First, where it says <no sprite> under the name of your object make sure you click it and select your spr_player. Also, let's give the object a name besides object0, I'll be using "obj_player".

 

Now, I've highlighted three important buttons there, keep those in mind. What you should do first is click "Add Event," which I've highlighted with the number '1.' Then click the button with the light-bulb that says "Create." This means that the code you put in the box to the right will be executed as soon as that object is created. Now click the "Control" tab to the right, which I've highlighted with '2.' Then drag that little page icon that I highlighted as '3' into the box on the right. You'll get a new window up. The next part is a bit tricky, so I'll show it to you all at once, then show you what each part does one by one. Put this code in:

 

can_jump=1gravity=0.3gravity_direction=270

Here's what they all do:

 

can_jump=1; This is just a variable. A variable is a word that game maker reads as a value. Because of this code, Game Maker now knows that whatever "can_jump" is, is equal to 1. This doesn't do anything yet, but it will. It'll make more sense later.

 

gravity=0.3; This tells game maker to set the force of gravity on this object to be 0.3. We could set it to anything; 0 for no gravity, or 1000 for super intense gravity. (But you really, REALLY, don't want to set it that high.) You can even set it to negative gravity, and make objects float up into the air. Anyway, you already know what gravity does, so I think I've explained all I have to.

 

gravity_direction=270; This code may seem a little confusing. By default, the gravity_direction is set to 0. It's an angle, and that angle is the direction of the gravity. At 0, your object will go falling off to the right, and that is NOT what we want at all. 270 degrees should bring us to an angle that points downwards, which is the way we want our gravity to go.

 

Did I move to fast? Hope that all made sense. The next part gets a little tricky. Create a new event, (remember the "Add Event" button) and make it a "Step" event. (Not thtend step that will also pop up when you press that button.) A step event executes itself every single frame. This is useful in a lot of cases. Anyway, here's the code I want you to put into it:

 

if place_free(x,y+1){gravity=0.3}else{gravity=0}

Do you see what I did there? As foreign as the code may seem to you, you can probably derive a few things from this. I'm asking the game a question, is the place with the coordinates (x,y+1) empty? x and y refer to the object, the player's, horizontal and vertical position. (X being horizontal, Y being vertical.) So we're asking if the position that is horizontally the same as the player's, but a little bit farther down, is "free". If it is, it must mean that we are not on solid ground. So now we have those brackets. The brackets right after this code say to do whatever is between them if the place is free at x,y+1. In this case, it's setting the gravity to 0.3, the value we decided on in the create event. That makes sense, right? Now we have this other bit of code right after. "else" with the brackets means to do what is in these brackets if the expression mentioned above is NOT correct. In this case, we ARE on solid ground. Having the gravity on when you're touching the ground can cause some glitches, so we want it off in this case. Simple, no?

 

Now, the next bit of code I want to do is going to require we make a new object, so click that blue sphere icon again. We'll call this one ob_ground, and make sure you select the spr_ground for it's sprite. Before you click "OK," make sure you check the box that says "Solid," this is very important. Now let's go back to our obj_player window.

 

Click "Add Event," and this time click "Collision." You should see two things appear in the drop down list, your "obj_player," and "obj_ground." Select obj_ground. Now create a code block by dragging the page icon again. This code will activate whenever the player collides with the ground. If the player is on the ground, it will activate every frame, just like the step event. Here's what you'll want to put into your code box:

 

vspeed=0can_jump=1

Can you guess what these are for? vspeed=0 set the player's vertical speed to 0, that means if the player is falling, this tells it to stop. can_jump=1 sets that variable that we initiated in the create event to 1. We do this because we don't want the player to be able to jump whenever they press up, then you could do infinite jumps in midair, making the game excruciatingly easy, and unrealistic. Since the player has touched down on the ground, we change it from 0, to 1. We'll be using this variable later, so keep it in mind.

 

Well the physics are taken care of now, but out player can't really do anything but fall, and that makes for a pretty boring game. What we need to do now is allow for some user input. What that means is that when the player pushes a button, something will happen. Let's start with moving left and right. So click "Add Event" once again, and click "Keyboard," then select <Right>. After drag your page icon to the right hand box again, and put in this code:

 

if place_free(x+5,y){x+=5}

What this does, is first checks to see if we have room to move to the right. If the place is free, meaning no solid objects, at the coordinates x+5,y, we move there. This'll move us five pixels to the right. You can make your player faster or slower with this code by changing the 5 to a higher or lower number, just be sure to change both the 5 in the x+=5 and the place_free().

 

Do the same thing create a Keyboard event, but do <Left>instead, and use this code:

 

if place_free(x-5,y){x-=5}

Now for the jumping. After all, what platform game is complete without being able to jump from... Well... Platforms? Make another keyboard event, this time with <Up> as the key being used. Here's the code you'll want in there.

 

if can_jump=1{vspeed=-8can_jump=0}

Remember can_jump from earlier? We set it to 1 when we collided with the ground. If it's 1 when we're on the ground, and being on the ground means we can jump, then we should be able to jump as long as can_jump is equal to 1. Once we start this code, we set can_jump back to 0, since once we've left the ground we can't jump again. We set the vertical speed to negative 8, since we're not falling, we're going up.

 

So I think our player is fully functional for now, so you probably want to test him out. How do we do this though? Well first we need a room for our player. Click the icon just to the right of the one we used for objects that looks like a window. (Windows OS window, not a window window. =P) You'll get a screen up that says "Room Properties." There will be a gray area in the window, a grid, and you should see your obj_ground in the window to your left. Click around on the gray area, and you'll see your obj_ground appear on there. If you have any issues with them deleting when you want them to overlap, uncheck the "Delete underlying" box. Once you've got a good supply of ground, click the little preview of it in the window to your left, and select your obj_player. Now click wherever you want him to go, just make sure it's somewhere over an obj_ground. Also, if you misplace anything, remember you can right click to delete stuff. Once you've done that, click the green play button icon in the bar up top, that says "Run the game" when you hover over it. (Or you can press F5) It will load a few things, and then you should see the gray room you just made, with your player in it and all. You can even move around. Pretty cool, eh?

 

So that's nifty and all, but there's no danger. What kind of game has no risk? We need obstacles, and other ways for our player to meet his doom. I'll start with an easy one, let's make it so our hero can die when he walks off the edge and falls below. So go back to the obj_player window, and create a new event. Select "Other," then <Outside Room>. Create a code box, (you know the drill) and put this code in:

 

if y>room_height{show_message("You are dead!")room_restart()}

So here's what this code does. When you're outside of the room, it does a check to make sure you've actually fallen to the bottom, and haven't just jumped off of the top part of the screen, by checking if your vertical coordinate is lower than the rooms height. If it is, we display the message, "You are dead!", a reference to the Resident Evil games. You can, of course, put whatever game over message you want here, just make sure you have it in the quotation marks as shown in my example. Then, we restart the room. This puts the player and everything else back the way it was before we started. You can test this code if you like now.

 

So that's pretty cool, eh? Well it isn't enough if you ask me, we need more danger! How about an enemy, bent on one thing and one thing alone: Taking out our hero. So let's make yet another object, and call it obj_enemy. In the enemy's create event, put this code:

 

direction=0speed=2

This is pretty straightforward code. We are doing the enemy's code a little differently than we did for the player, for the sake of simplicity. Since the enemy isn't going to do any jumping, we aren't going to use gravity; so long as our enemy starts on the ground, it'll look just fine. Now what the direction=0 does is set our direction to the right. Since we're on a 360 degree system, 180 would be left, simple enough, right? Speed sets the enemies pixels moved per step, and you can make it faster for harder enemies should you choose to do so. Now let's create a step event for our enemy. Put in this code:

 

if place_free(x,y+1){if direction=0{direction=180}else{direction=0}}

Hope that doesn't confuse you too much, putting an if statement inside of another if statement. I'll break it down, in case you're confused. If the place is free at x,y+1, it tells us that we're moving off the edge. Our enemy shouldn't walk off the edge, so when it gets that close, it should really reverse direction. So, if we're moving off the edge, change directions, and that's where the next bit of code comes in. If we're moving right, change the direction to left, but if we were already moving left, go right. Simple enough, right? Remember you ALWAYS have to close the brackets that you create, you'll have errors if you don't.

 

Well our enemy should be functional now, we can go back to our obj_player window and make it hurt when you touch it. Make another collision event for obj_player, this time with obj_enemy. In a codebox here, put this:

 

show_message("You are dead!")room_restart()

I've already explained this code, so you can proceed to add enemies to your room, and test it. It works? Great! But you really should have some way to kill these things, am I right? So here's what we do, you know that code for colliding with obj_enemy that I showed you? Let's shake it up a bit. What if we jump on their heads? Yeah, that would take care of them, so let's do our code there this way:

 

if y<other.y-4{with(other){instance_destroy()}}else{show_message("You are dead!")room_restart()}

That may seem complex, but most of what it uses are things we've seen before, x and y coordinates, if statements, and our game over message. The new parts are the use of "other," instance_destroy(), and the with() statement. Other refers to the object you are colliding with. We could use obj_enemy here if there was only one obj_enemy on screen, but since we might have more, we need to know that it's specifically the obj enemy we're colliding with right now. instance_destroy() destroys any object that executes it from the game. We check to see if we are higher than the enemy by at least five pixels when we collide. If we are, than we do this thing with the with statement. The with statement executes the code within the brackets for the object in question. We don't want to destroy the player, we want to destroy "other", so we use with when using the instance_destroy() function. Now try jumping on those enemies, better huh?

 

So, we have enemies, we have platforms, we have our player, we only need one more thing; a goal. You need something for the player to try and reach. So create one more object, obj_goal. You don't need any code here, just select the sprite you want to use as the goal. Now go back to your obj_player window, and make a collision event for obj_goal. This is the code you want to put into it:

 

if room=room_last{show_message("Congratulations, you've won!")game_end()}else{room_goto_next()}

This code checks to see if we're in the last room, if we are, we've won when we touch the goal, so tell the player that and end the game, otherwise, proceed to the next room. That means you can keep adding rooms after the one you already have, and make your game as long as you like. Congratulations, you just finished your first Game Maker game, that wasn't so bad, was it?

 

A few images you may use when making your game:

Blob:

Bald Dude:

Mushroom:

Bricks:

Goal:

 

And if you're stuck, here's the .GMK project file of this whole tutorial: https://app.box.com/shared/pxqjfg86gn

 

Hope someone finds this useful.

 

EDIT: Oh, and if you guys like this, I'd be happy to write another Game Maker tutorial like it in another genre, I'll take requests.

Edited September 11, 2009 by Spudd (see edit history)

[Mordent 0]

Not a bad little Game Maker tutorial (fond memories of spending hours tinkering with that in years past), though can I suggest you mention about Rooms (or at least that you need to have them!), as that's one major area that's slipped from your tutorial (easy enough to do for someone who has been using it for a while, filling in the room becomes almost second nature).You might also want to mention where you got your images from. Copyright issues and all that (though I suspect they came in some bundle of images that can be downloaded to go well with Game Maker, I'm a bit behind on what the current packs have in them).Also, as a bit of good practice you should probably have the if statements use "==" rather than "=". Although Game Maker accepts the latter, it's more because of it trying to be friendly to programming novices. Best to get the good habits ironed in from the start, eh? Same with semicolons. You don't strictly need them in Game Maker, but it's certainly good to get in the mindset of requiring them for the multitude of languages that do.Just one quick hole I've noticed with your code: as far as I can tell, the enemies will walk so that they will look like they're falling off of the edge of the ground before changing direction. It might perhaps be better to check if there's any ground up ahead (requiring one for left and one for right, or combining them if you're feeling a bit more clever - though certainly not recommended for a novice) and change direction before stepping off of your current one.If you plan on making another tutorial, can I suggest it be a more refined version of the platform to show a progression and using some more functions, perhaps some sound effects and possibly a few random factors (randomising the enemy's start direction and speed, for example). Just a handful of suggestions, hope they help!

[The Simpleton 2]

wow that's quite an impressive tutorial - it seemed easy enough to read now I have to try it out.Thanks for the initiation! I have one doubt regarding this - once we create a game using gamemaker, is it our own or will it still be the property of gamemaker? I ask because if I manage to create the game mentioned above then I would like to distribute it among friends so I hope there won't be any problem with that.

 

Anyway, once again thanks a lot - I will be looking forward to your next tutorial Keep up the good work!

[Spudd 0]

Not a bad little Game Maker tutorial (fond memories of spending hours tinkering with that in years past), though can I suggest you mention about Rooms (or at least that you need to have them!), as that's one major area that's slipped from your tutorial (easy enough to do for someone who has been using it for a while, filling in the room becomes almost second nature).

 

You might also want to mention where you got your images from. Copyright issues and all that (though I suspect they came in some bundle of images that can be downloaded to go well with Game Maker, I'm a bit behind on what the current packs have in them).

 

Also, as a bit of good practice you should probably have the if statements use "==" rather than "=". Although Game Maker accepts the latter, it's more because of it trying to be friendly to programming novices. Best to get the good habits ironed in from the start, eh? Same with semicolons. You don't strictly need them in Game Maker, but it's certainly good to get in the mindset of requiring them for the multitude of languages that do.

 

Just one quick hole I've noticed with your code: as far as I can tell, the enemies will walk so that they will look like they're falling off of the edge of the ground before changing direction. It might perhaps be better to check if there's any ground up ahead (requiring one for left and one for right, or combining them if you're feeling a bit more clever - though certainly not recommended for a novice) and change direction before stepping off of your current one.

 

If you plan on making another tutorial, can I suggest it be a more refined version of the platform to show a progression and using some more functions, perhaps some sound effects and possibly a few random factors (randomising the enemy's start direction and speed, for example). Just a handful of suggestions, hope they help!

Thanks. And I did mention rooms, but only briefly:

 

Click the icon just to the right of the one we used for objects that looks like a window. (Windows OS window, not a window window. =P) You'll get a screen up that says "Room Properties." There will be a gray area in the window, a grid, and you should see your obj_ground in the window to your left.

I made the images myself before releasing the tutorial, actually.

 

Well, since they weren't necessary I didn't feel the need to mention them. I myself generally do use semicolons, but I usually just use = in my own code.

 

I noticed that bug shortly after posting. Oh well, I'll probably revise that later, but for now I'm tired out just writing that behemoth.

 

I probably will do that; a more advanced platformer tutorial. It could have slopes and the like. Thanks for the suggestion

 

wow that's quite an impressive tutorial - it seemed easy enough to read now I have to try it out.Thanks for the initiation! I have one doubt regarding this - once we create a game using gamemaker, is it our own or will it still be the property of gamemaker? I ask because if I manage to create the game mentioned above then I would like to distribute it among friends so I hope there won't be any problem with that.

Anyway, once again thanks a lot - I will be looking forward to your next tutorial smile.gif Keep up the good work!

 

You do have the rights to anything you make, there actually are a few Game Maker games that are being sold as we speak. (Untitled Story, 10 Million BC, and Bumps to name a few.) In the lite version, you're required to mention that you used Game Maker somewhere in the credits should you sell your game for actual money, but it does that automatically on the loading screen. The Pro version lets you do whatever you want.

Edited July 10, 2012 by moderator (see edit history)

[Nameless_ 1]

Can you sell the games that you make from Game Maker? My friends sell games for like a hundred USD dollars each, and I'm interested in doing that, so is it totally fully your property even if you make the game from the game maker software? And even if you use their icons and sprites and stuff?Thanks in advance... yes, I'm still on my making money online quest.

[Mordent 0]

Thanks. And I did mention rooms, but only briefly:

Ah yep, missed it first time through.

Can you sell the games that you make from Game Maker? My friends sell games for like a hundred USD dollars each, and I'm interested in doing that, so is it totally fully your property even if you make the game from the game maker software? And even if you use their icons and sprites and stuff?
Thanks in advance... yes, I'm still on my making money online quest.

Yup, you can. Game Maker makes its money from people upgrading to the "Pro" version (which unlocks a fair number of "advanced" features, as well as allowing you to not display any Game Maker reference in your game). Do bear in mind that the games you make are likely to be relatively simple, and although Game Maker certainly has a lot of excellent potential getting a game worthy of being sold requires a fair bit of work. The icons and sprites (as well as other resources), as well as any other of their resource packs, can be used however you see fit, though that's certainly not necessarily true of any images you find elsewhere on the internet.

One thing I should point out is that the only type of game Game Maker is able to produce is .exe, so you won't be able to have these games running from your web browser like Flash games. Still, if you reckon you can make a decent game out of it and one that people will want to download to play then go for it!
Edited September 12, 2009 by Mordent (see edit history)

[rob86 2]

My friends sell games for like a hundred USD dollars each,

What? Where are these games? New big name games only cost $80 CAD, unless the price has jumped a lot in the last few years. I haven't had the hardware to run new games for years, so I don't buy any Even popular "award winning" games from independent groups don't cost half that much. So I'm wondering what kind of games your friends are selling for $100.

Some people make and sell games created by RPG Maker. A lot of people think that's lame, because it isn't very original (if you play any RPG maker made games, the graphics are often the same in different games which is definitely an unappealing sign of unprofessionalism) but if the story and characters aren't too bad, it's worth something I guess.


I wish I could make a strategy war game. Not necessarily a huge one like Starcraft or something, but something that's at least enjoyable for a simple game.
Edited September 12, 2009 by rob86 (see edit history)

[Mordent 0]

What? Where are these games? New big name games only cost $80 CAD, unless the price has jumped a lot in the last few years. I haven't had the hardware to run new games for years, so I don't buy any Even popular "award winning" games from independent groups don't cost half that much. So I'm wondering what kind of games your friends are selling for $100.
*snip*

I'd hazard a guess that the games are sold to retailers or to a website that then hosts or sells the game on. Where do you think all of those Flash games on arcade sites come from? While some people are happy to create games for fun or to gain experience, a fair number of the better ones probably cost someone a fair bit somewhere along the line (along with the rights to sell it on or use it on their site).

Essentially, the $100 is the development cost that is likely in the millions or tens of millions for the "award winning" games you mention.

[Nameless_ 1]

What? Where are these games? New big name games only cost $80 CAD, unless the price has jumped a lot in the last few years. I haven't had the hardware to run new games for years, so I don't buy any Even popular "award winning" games from independent groups don't cost half that much. So I'm wondering what kind of games your friends are selling for $100.
Some people make and sell games created by RPG Maker. A lot of people think that's lame, because it isn't very original (if you play any RPG maker made games, the graphics are often the same in different games which is definitely an unappealing sign of unprofessionalism) but if the story and characters aren't too bad, it's worth something I guess.


I wish I could make a strategy war game. Not necessarily a huge one like Starcraft or something, but something that's at least enjoyable for a simple game.

Well, she said it's just a simple game. Like those girls that you dress with some dresses and things... that's what she said. She also said that the companies pay her to put their logos in their games to advertise.

And she DID said $100 USD... I'm certain of it, though I can ask her for more information if you want...

[Spudd 0]

Well, I've never heard of anyone selling a Game Maker game for anywhere close to $100 USD. I've seen them sell for $20 though, so if you were to sell five copies at that price you would make $100 USD, right?

 

Anyway, most Game Maker games are free, some are even open source. The vast majority of GM users are in it for the fun and experience. However, there are people who sell their games, and they generally do okay with that, so yes, it's totally possible.

[mahesh2k 0]

Can you sell the games that you make from Game Maker?

Yes. you can sell games. But i doubt the games made from game maker could price for more than 50$. In such case, you need better 2D engine and tool. Something like Garagegames 2D engine. It costs 100$ for independent license and more than 100$ for enterprise/commercial licensee. Though you can sell money with garage-games indie license but it costs more if the distribution and other royalty stuff comes in. Back to point of gamemaker, you can even sell games which you create from free version. But nag of "made with gamemaker" will turn off your game buyers and will low down your product image as well. So it is better to purchase gamemaker. It costs only 20$. You can send check/wire transfer/paypal to pay for upgrade.

My friends sell games for like a hundred USD dollars each, and I'm interested in doing that, so is it totally fully your property even if you make the game from the game maker software? And even if you use their icons and sprites and stuff?

Are you sure she uses gamemaker ? I doubt that gamemaker games sells for such high cost. Of course if graphics/sounds and story plot is good then sure it will get sold for more than 100$. I think she is earning money by promoting brand names/logo as you said in your previous post of yours.

[Spudd 0]

He didn't say she used Game Maker; he said she made over $100 each game she made, and wanted to know if he could do something similar with Game Maker. My answer is that it would be a first, it's highly unlikely that you could make that much money for a single sale on a Game Maker game. You do have the rights to your own games, and you can sell them for whatever price you choose, but it's hard for an independent developer, not only with Game Maker, but with any game making tool, to make a huge profit on a game. Just look at the 360's indie games up for sale. Those games were made in C# with XNA's libraries, highly professional tools, and they're selling for about $5-10 USD. Game Maker has quite open possibilities, it can make games of any genre, 2D or 3D, (though it'll lag like crazy in most 3D games) so it's not a matter of "you can't make a professional and graphically pleasing game with Game Maker." It's just that doing so with any tool on your own is quite a feat.

[The Simpleton 2]

Wow from a tutorial this topic has gone into business Making games itself is a huge achievement and selling them is yet another achievement. But if you ask me, the price won't matter once you get people to like your game(s). I would be happy if people loved my game and I'd readily sell it for as low as $5 - after all, popularity matters!!!

[Unknown_99 0]

Nice tutorial, well I never used the Game Maker program but I guess I can give it a shot. I'm intermediate with programming so hopefully I should be able to get a hang of this. But I suppose Game Maker is a tad outdated now? or is there newer version out there? Cause I'm really sure of seeing/remembering the name of the software out there years ago....

[Spudd 0]

Nice tutorial, well I never used the Game Maker program but I guess I can give it a shot. I'm intermediate with programming so hopefully I should be able to get a hang of this. But I suppose Game Maker is a tad outdated now? or is there newer version out there? Cause I'm really sure of seeing/remembering the name of the software out there years ago....

If you are already an intermediate programmer, Game Maker will be a cinch. I started Game Maker after using Visual Basic and HTML for a few years.

The latest version is Game Maker 7.0, which is now Vista compatible, (Game Maker 6.0 and 6.1 were not.) and sports extensions. The are currently developing Game Maker 8.0, which will be Mac compatible, have smaller game files, and have some fancy new editors. Game Maker has been around for a while, but it is still being actively worked on, so it is not outdated.