next »

[Paul Eres]

i don't particularly love game maker, i just think it's very important to indie games (about as important as flash is, if not moreso). few of the game developers i mentioned would have made their games without game maker, because they got into games because game maker made it easy to make games.

i've not been impressed with games made in construct; it can't do anything game maker can't do, and is quite a bit buggier. i'm sure it'll be great after it's finished though.

[Mikademus]

Me and Paul do not really agree on the virtues of GM, but I think we do agree on that the indie scene needs tools like Game Maker. Many indies and wannabie indies have the ideas but lack tech savvyness, and such tools let them in on the fray. It is a basic sociological principle: the more varied the population, the more variegated the result.

[Melly]

I've thought of someday teaming up with someone extremely tech savvy in order to develop with him a tool like Game Maker, only with layers of complexity, from simple drag-and-drop on a canvas to fiddling with how the rendering code works. I'd focus on the design of the program and how the layers of complexity work, UI, and basically anything that isn't code-heavy.

I even have a perfect name for it.

Alas, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to make that a reality, but I do agree that tools like Game Maker are very important. In fact, we need even potentially easier tools, and tools that allow diferent styles of development.

[Mikademus]

Yeah, I think M.U.G.E.N is an example of what is also needed: highly specialised yet very adaptable tools for particular genres. RPG Maker was a good idea but a horrible execution. Two extremely popular game makers for the C64 were Shoot-em Up Construction Kit and Pinball Construction Kit, two genres very popular at the time. So I think indie game development would benefit from a set of tools like this that would help introduce beginners into game development and elevate the floor of indie games. Everyone would win!

[Melly]

I don't really agree much with that, because I tend to dislike genre classification in general. I think it limits people's imaginations too much.

By style of development, I was talking about, for example, a development mode in which you build levels directly on a canvas and just add objects on them, defining their behaviour. Another mode could be more logic-centric, where you'd just work out the game logic, and see the result in real time. Stuff like that.

And of course it needs sound/music/art/3d editors built-in, all easy to use and still allowing for plenty of power for those that wish for it.

Yeah, my ideas are insanely ambitious. It's just how I think.

[John Nesky]

By making an editor where you put objects on a canvas, you are already restricting the genre. Every game editor, through its design, lends itself to a different sort of game.

[Mikademus]

I don't really agree much with that, because I tend to dislike genre classification in general. I think it limits people's imaginations too much.

Sure. Still there are some genres everyone keeps on making games for, which would benefit from some streamlined tools. And MUGEN is a good example because though it is for Street Fighter-styled fighting games you can push it quite a bit.

[Melly]

By making an editor where you put objects on a canvas, you are already restricting the genre. Every game editor, through its design, lends itself to a different sort of game.

Which is why my dream editor has several different modes of development that you can switch to on a fly.

This thing's never gonna get made...

[Brother Android]

I don't really agree much with that, because I tend to dislike genre classification in general. I think it limits people's imaginations too much.

I agree 100%. Pretty much the only good games that would end up being made with a genre-specific tool would be the ones that pushed the tool's limits anyway, I feel.

I think that Game Maker, for its numerous flaws, is an excellent program because it introduces people to programming concepts gradually and is, at least up to a point, only as complex as you want it to be. Without it I would likely have never gotten into programming, and I'm very glad to have done that.

[Paul Eres]

there are still a ton of great games in ags, ohrrpgce, rpgmaker, etc., which don't 'push the limits' in a huge way, but are just good games. 5 days a stranger is a good example that doesn't go beyond what the ags was designed to do, but uses it so well that it's become a classic of indie gaming and launched yahtzee's internet fame

[Tumetsu]

there are still a ton of great games in ags, ohrrpgce, rpgmaker, etc., which don't 'push the limits' in a huge way, but are just good games. 5 days a stranger is a good example that doesn't go beyond what the ags was designed to do, but uses it so well that it's become a classic of indie gaming and launched yahtzee's internet fame

And these specialized tools can act as a gates to game development since people often start by wanting to do game just like that X one. For example I started with Zelda Classic since I wanted to make Zelda games which eventually led to other tools like GM.

EDIT: Went to look what ZC was about nowadays and seems like htey haven't updated it since 2005. However, there seems to be surprisingly lively community still. Also, kind of nostalgic feeling to browse their site since it hasn't changed a bit in these 5 years :D

[Mikademus]

there are still a ton of great games in ags, ohrrpgce, rpgmaker, etc., which don't 'push the limits' in a huge way, but are just good games. 5 days a stranger is a good example that doesn't go beyond what the ags was designed to do, but uses it so well that it's become a classic of indie gaming and launched yahtzee's internet fame

And these specialized tools can act as a gates to game development since people often start by wanting to do game just like that X one. For example I started with Zelda Classic since I wanted to make Zelda games which eventually led to other tools like GM.

Yeah, that was essentially what I was getting at.

[Brother Android]

Well, alright. That doesn't make them ideal tools, though. I mean, heck, a level editor can make someone realize they have an interest in or a talent for game design. That doesn't make it an ideal development tool, and that certainly doesn't make it better than something like Game Maker which can do a lot of different things.

[Paul Eres]

i think level editors are a good first step actually -- you'd probably learn far more about game design by spending a year making good levels in a level editor than by spending a year learning programming

[John Nesky]

The more general the tool is, the harder it is to learn. Programming languages are among the most general tools we have, but programming languages do not make level editors obsolete.