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[deWiTTERS]

When I read through the posts on the Your biggest obstacle to create a game? thread, a lot of obstacles could be resolved by using a game dev editor like Game Maker or Construct. For example "doing boring work like resource management or gui stuff", "not enough time", "no programming skills" etc. could be resolved by using such an editor. So my question is, what's holding you back from using game developement editors?

I must say that I also don't use such a tool. I'm a programmer and want total control over the sources . But I was wondering why others are staying away from such tools?

[G-Factor]

That's a good question. It sounds kind of silly but I keep thinking that the learning curve of using something like GameMaker will put me off. At least if I code my own framework (or use a fairly low level rendering engine), I know exactly how stuff works. It's silly because I'm certain the time it takes to develop something in GameMaker will be much less compared to starting from scratch...even taking into consideration getting used to the tool.

I hadn't coded in about 6 years and wanted to re-learn the beast that is C++, so that was also a factor. Having said that, I'm most likely going to look at a higher level engine/editor for my next project. I want to finish games...not spend 2 days on a freaking moving platform which is what happened a couple of weeks ago 

[Hempuli‽]

Absolutely nothing!

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

when i see polls about what engines/languages people use to make games in, typically c++, flash, and game maker (in that order) usually win. but i always wonder how many of the people using c++ actually finish games compared to how many of the people who use flash or GM.

[slembcke]

Well, my experience with Unity is that as often as they make hard things easy, they make easy things hard. Something that would be as simple as 10 lines of OpenGL code simply become impossible to do without a difficult, hairy, and expensive workaround. Often this is because what you wanted to do is simply does not fit into the Unity/Game Maker way of doing things.

Also, sometimes I'm less interested in making a game per se than having fun solving technical problems associated with games. When I started writing Chipmunk, there was pretty much nothing for 2D physics engines. People told me that I was wasting my time and that I should just be tricking a 3D engine into doing 2D physics. I find it sort of ironic that I've seen people on many occasions tell other people to use Chipmunk or Box2D instead of attempting to write their own physics. If writing a physics engine is fun, then go for it!

While I haven't finished a lot of games, and have a large pile of unfinished ones, it's still satisfying to know that people appreciate Chipmunk and have made some great games with it.

[Oddball]

There are no obstacles to making a game, all those excuses are a load of bollocks. Unless there is something physically preventing you from sitting in front of a computer and putting in a shift everything else is bullshit. Lack of art/music/coding/maths skills. Bullshit! Some great games have been made by people who lack some or all those qualities. In fact it often drives them to make better games in the long run, because they have to work harder at it. Lack of motivation/drive/whatever you want to call it. Bullshit! Motivation is a myth, you either do something or you don't, motivation has nothing to do with it. Either you are a person who does things or you are a person who doesn't do things. People who claim to lack motivation or drive are just among the people who don't do things, but also have the annoying trait of whinging about it. Man up and just get it done. Sorry for the slightly OT rant

[ChevyRay]

I don't get what you're trying to say, then. People fail to make games because... they want... to? Calling motivation a myth is a pretty ballsy thing to declare, especially in the ears of someone who gets several emails weekly from developers who are having trouble with it and want to know how I motivate myself. And even harder considering that I DO have specific ways of motivating myself, and if I stop doing those things, my production rate and quality goes down.

So thanks for spewing off that a whole bunch of things don't exist, but what does exist between someone and completing a project, if I may ask? What's your excuse for such a rant, it seems unfounded and ridiculous.

EDIT: Re-read it, yeah I still totally don't get where you're coming from. I don't get how having this attitude contributes positively to the problem of people having trouble completing things at all.

[Nate Kling]

While I don't think that motivation isn't real there is some merit to what Oddball is saying.  Sometimes it's easy not to work on something when you can just use the excuse: "oh I'm not motivated so I can't work on it".  Everyone loses motivation, you just have to force yourself to work, although having motivation and inspiration can make that work much more fun and easy.  Sometimes you just need to start working and then you find your motivation once you get started.

[Zecks]

I've only been using GM previously and gotten along decently, but if I want to do any of my future stuff, I'll have to learn programming proper because I need the increased control, and speed moreso. My difficulties with it are trying to draw me back again though.

Anyone have some spare motivation? 

[Eraser]

I don't because GM is disgustingly inefficient and is not as cross-platform as I would like (win/lin/mac). Sure it's got a beta for mac out now which is going to be finalized soon, but it's going to be just as slow as gm for win, require me to pay even more money, and still not run on Linux. Same deal with construct, except I've had issues with games made with it running on several machines for some odd reason.

[Razz]

I'm making a level editor in game maker. Is this redundant? Maybe ...

[Oddball]

So thanks for spewing off that a whole bunch of things don't exist, but what does exist between someone and completing a project, if I may ask? What's your excuse for such a rant, it seems unfounded and ridiculous.

Ok, maybe I came across a bit strong there. It just irks me when people come up with these pathetic excuses for why something didn't get done. But consider this, if people only did things whilst motivated those people who claim to be unmotivated people would never do anything, ever. I read an article on subconscious decision making a couple of years back. Their research showed that people subconsciously make there decisions almost instantly, and the conscious decision process mainly consists of justifying and rationalising those subconscious decisions. Motivation is a word used almost exclusively by those claiming they lack it. The so called motivated people don't consider themselves motivated they just get things done.

EDIT: Re-read it, yeah I still totally don't get where you're coming from. I don't get how having this attitude contributes positively to the problem of people having trouble completing things at all.

I wasn't really aiming to contribute anything positive, that's why it was a bit of a rant. But if you push me then I guess my point is forget all your so called excuses, sit in front of a computer and start getting things done. It really is that simple.

[John Nesky]

people subconsciously make there decisions almost instantly, and the conscious decision process mainly consists of justifying and rationalising those subconscious decisions...

That's a good point. But I feel like this contradicts your other point:

...sit in front of a computer and start getting things done. It really is that simple.

You find that you are able to get work done, for admittedly subconscious reasons. Other people are finding it harder to get work done, again for subconscious reasons. However, without further investigation, there's no telling when you might subconsciously decide to do something else. Your subconscious is a black box to you, and it just happens to be doing what you want right now, but what if it changes its mind?

[Oddball]

The point is though that the subconscious doesn't control us. Once you realise that all your excuses are false excuses you have little choice but to stop putting things off. I mean how can being rubbish at art really stop you from making a game? It can't. Granted it may not look as good as you would have liked, but it's not a deal breaker. Same goes with coding, with the freely available internet resource a bit of research can get you over virtually any coding road block you come up against. These excuses aren't really any reason to stop you making a game, and I suspect they are the conscious minds way of justifying a subconscious decision.

[moi]

I think there are too many programming hobbyist starting game projects alone.
It is okay if you are working with someone else and you code the engine and the other guy makes the game, but if you waste all your time working the engine(it is a good passtime all by itself) the game won't get done, and at the end you'll end up with an engine that will probably be less efficient than something like construct.
So yeah, if you can use a premade solution, use it.

[Melly]

Personally, I found myself enjoying using pure code with some kind of framework designed to make games, like coding in AS3 with FlashPunk or Flixel. The framework takes a lot of annoyances off your shoulders (fast collision detection, rendering, sound, tilemaps, and so on), while allowing you to change anything in it if you find that it makes doing something you want a chore. You just go in the framework's code and change something (of course, being careful not to break something else, which is less likely on better-coded frameworks), or extend a class from it and override some methods that are not doing things the way you'd like.

[bento_smile]

I use Construct, but still consider my lack of coding ability as an obstacle. Mostly, I don't have enough experience to have confidence in my decisions, and also when things go wrong I can't always fix them. XD Feeling mostly that if I were a better coder, the tiny roadblocks I face would be much much less intimidating (recognising that like art, code just increases in complexity the more you learn, and more and larger blocks to progress appear.)

There are no obstacles to making a game, all those excuses are a load of bollocks.

Wow, that's a little harsh! There's no harm in acknowledging the obstacles in game production, as long as you fully intend to overcome them.   It's not an excuse then, but something to focus on improving.

[Brother Android]

Personally, I found myself enjoying using pure code with some kind of framework designed to make games, like coding in AS3 with FlashPunk or Flixel. The framework takes a lot of annoyances off your shoulders (fast collision detection, rendering, sound, tilemaps, and so on), while allowing you to change anything in it if you find that it makes doing something you want a chore. You just go in the framework's code and change something (of course, being careful not to break something else, which is less likely on better-coded frameworks), or extend a class from it and override some methods that are not doing things the way you'd like.

I agree. I've worked in all three types of development - editor that holds your hand (Game Maker), pure code (well, almost; C++ with SDL) and Flash with a framework (Flixel), and I think that the lattermost has been the most enjoyable for me. It gives you more fine control than something like Game Maker, and doesn't permit nearly as much laziness, but it's far less labor-intensive and nit-picky than C++.

[Oddball]

Wow, that's a little harsh! There's no harm in acknowledging the obstacles in game production, as long as you fully intend to overcome them.   It's not an excuse then, but something to focus on improving.

Maybe I should have said there are no obstacles that stop you making a game. And also been a little less aggressive about how I said it. Basically my point was the same as yours, although you said it better.

[LemonScented]

Reasons I'm using C++:

- Because I can. I've built several engines in the past (each of which re-uses parts from earlier attempts), and it's not a big deal for me to pull a few libraries together into something coherent. Having played with XNA, for instance, I feel like my engine is already more fully-featured and easy to use.

- Because the game I want to make is going to need some proper horsepower behind it. If it was a different game I had in mind, then sure, maybe Game Maker would be up to it, but right now every bit of power counts.

- Because well-written C++ is more portable than most other things I've seen.

- Because I consider engine work to be an investment. I already have several future projects in mind that fit quite nicely into the engine I've built for the current game, so even though I may be taking a tougher route now, it should provide the path of least resistance in the future.

Reasons why, even though I feel I've made the right choice for my game, I regret it sometimes:

- Building the level editing tools is a pain in the ass. Writing tools and level editors isn't my idea of fun, but it's a necessary evil if I'm to make the content creation part as easy as possible. I'd love to be able to use some external library for the editor interface, but it's so closely tied to the engine and the game that no general purpose solution exists. So I have to build it myself, and that saps my time and motivation.

- Progress can be slow on unproven engines. Until the engine and game code start to settle into something that's more bulletproofed, proven and reliable, I sometimes find that when I sit down to work on Cool Feature X, I end up stumbling upon Worrying Bug Y. I don't like leaving known bugs unfixed for very long, so usually debugging and fixing Y becomes the priority, and Cool Feature X has to wait until that particular kink has been ironed out.