Game Maker
Version: 7.0
Downloads Count: 1,193
License Type: Free
Price: Free
Date Added: Apr 14, 2008
Operating Systems: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista
Requirements: 10 MB Disk Space, Direct X 8, 32 MB Graphics Card, 800 x 600 resolution
Author: Yoyogames
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Editor's Review of Game Maker
It is the rare person who, after playing a fun game, doesn't say "I want to make something like this!" It is an even rarer person who succeeds. Game programming is very hard, and the skills needed are varied--coding, design, art, music. Game Maker 7.0 is a powerful tool which does a lot of the 'heavy lifting' for you, allowing you to focus on gameplay and creativity instead of drudge coding.
A few caveats: You will not be making the next Halo, WoW, or Grand Theft Auto in this. It's a tool for relatively basic 2D games that do not have every cutting edge feature, realtime physics engines, and so on. This is not to say it can't be used for commercial games--'casual' games like those made famous by PopCap
can be produced using the tools here, as can a wide variety of RPGs, scrolling games, and shooters,. The skills learned using this tool--logic, level design, debugging, and so on--are useful in all game design, so anyone interested in professional work would find this a good first step.
At the simplest level, no coding is needed. You can simply create objects (such as a ball), backgrounds (for example, the maze of Pac-Man) and create behaviors by simple menu choices--such as making a ball move to a random spot when you click on it. Game Maker encapsulates the most common actions and interactions so that you do not need to code up the very basic core of gameplay. To create truly interesting or original games, though, you must use the Game Maker Language, or GML.
GML is a fairly straightforward language with the usual logical constructs (loops, branching, functions, and so on) as well as tools which directly reference the objects of your game, and special commands for manipulating many objects at once. Some of the functions of the language, such as splash screens, are only available in $20 Game Maker Pro.
If you have any interest in game programming--and realistic expectations--Game Maker is an excellent tool.
Note: This link takes you to the vendor's site, where you must register to download the software.
--Ian Harac
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