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[Aaron P]

Greetings TIGers,

Ok, so I have an idea for a game, and i'm ready to put this game out of mockup misery and into motion. Problem is, I couldn't code "Hello World" to save my life.....ok, that's a lie, I actually can code Hello World in C#. But that's about as far as coding goes for me. So i'm going for a more simplistic way of creation and picking up a game creation suite.

I'm pretty new to this, so they all are pretty much greek to me. So i've done research and the three most talked about products seem to be Game Maker, Multimedia Fusion 2 and Construct.

I like Game Maker's interface, and though I have yet to actually use the Pro version, it seems to be very capable of creating vast games. I hate hate hate the fact that games made with it seem to become super huge super quick, and the initial loading process for some GM games i've played was downright unacceptable. 

Multimedia Fusion seems to be a simpler nut to crack from my very limited experience with it thus far, but the check mark system gets confusing sometimes, and I can only imagine the hell it must be to attempt to fix a bug with all those check marks everywhere in a complex game. 

I literally didn't know about Construct until yesterday, however, i'm very intrigued. It's open-source, it creates Direct X games, and has a robust particle and shading/effects system. But construct is still in Beta stages, apparently still pretty buggy, and I'd cry if my labor of love eventually came to a halt because of a bug within the program. 

So, what's your opinion? FWIW if it makes the decision easier, the game i'm creating is an auto-side scrolling "run and gun" type game. So if any of these three cater more readily to this type of creation, mention please? And thanks in advance for your responses! 

[increpare]

a lot depends on the sort of game you have in mind. what sort of game do you have in mind to make?

[Aaron P]

a lot depends on the sort of game you have in mind. what sort of game do you have in mind to make?

Its a auto side-scrolling run & gun game. 2D with pixel art. The enemies will work off pre determined paths as opposed to AI. Kind of like a platformer-rail-shooter. I envision the pace of the game to be very quick, with lots of projectile dodging. Parallax Scrolling layers for the background.

[TeeGee]

I hate hate hate the fact that games made with it seem to become super huge super quick, and the initial loading process for some GM games i've played was downright unacceptable.

Nah, that's just bad coding, not GM's fault. Keeping resources external makes even content-packed games have small exes that load pretty much instantly.

Its a auto side-scrolling run & gun game. 2D with pixel art. The enemies will work off pre determined paths as opposed to AI. Kind of like a platformer-rail-shooter. I envision the pace of the game to be very quick, with lots of projectile dodging. Parallax Scrolling layers for the background.

I don't know much about Construct, but I'm sure that both GM and MMF would have no troubles with powering such thing. So just pick the one you feel is more convinient for you.

[Don Andy]

I personally liked Construct a bit better than GM (haven't tried MMF2 yet), but I think Construct still isn't very "ripe" yet as compared to GM, so if you're looking for something free GM is in my opinion your best bet.
GM may also be a bit more computer friendly than Construct, since Construct works with with pretty high-end DirectX.

Definitely try Construct out though, and if it works for what you're trying to achieve and you feel comfortable with it, go for it (that essentially goes for all three, though, just use what you feel most comfortable with).

[i stole your car]

I prefer MMF2 over GM personally but just because I feel it's a little cleaner and with my limited ability and brain power I was able to create more complex games, easier. I have no idea which is the more powerful engine because it seems whatever you want to create, as long as you have the ability to do so, both GM and MMF2 can probably handle it. Your best bet would be to try them both out and see which one you prefer personally.

Construct however I have never even heard of until now. It looks fantastic and I am trying it out right now so thanks for pointing me towards that.

[William Broom]

I think if you are willing to learn the coding necessary for GM (and from what I've heard, it's nowhere near as difficult as 'real' coding) then it is probably the better option. The biggest flaw in MMF is that you can't create an engine, i.e. edit the engine, and the whole game changes accordingly. Instead you make all the code (or MMF's equivalent to code) in one level, then copy/paste it to the next, and the next, and so on. If you want to change the engine, you have to copy and paste to every level again. That might have changed in MMF2 though. Someone here will know, I'm sure.

[Annabelle Kennedy]

The biggest flaw in MMF is that you can't create an engine, i.e. edit the engine, and the whole game changes accordingly.

some people would probably argue with that...

but you're more or less right in that its fairly difficult and hacky to set up... but it can be done!

[i stole your car]

Well I've been playing with Construct all morning and this thing is amazing. So far I think I prefer it to both MMF2 and GM. Everything just seems to work so much better.

EDIT: Although a lot of the features do seem very similar to MMF2, it just seems a lot sleeker and more concisely put together.

[agj]

Out of the three, I have only used Construct. It's buggy as all hell, but it's completely free! It's the most similar to Multimedia Fusion, from what I've been able to gather, only its events system is more versatile. No coding required. Other than the bugs, a point against it is that its documentation is still very sparse.

[Hideous]

Another point is that it's simple enough that you don't really need any documentation. And trust me, it's been getting way less buggy lately.

[Manbabyoid]

Random lurker here. I've used all three programs (though I'm mainly an MMF user) so I thought I'd give you guys my two cents here:

The biggest flaw in MMF is that you can't create an engine, i.e. edit the engine, and the whole game changes accordingly. Instead you make all the code (or MMF's equivalent to code) in one level, then copy/paste it to the next, and the next, and so on.

No offense, but this is simply not true. I'm not going to go into details, but it's more than possible to keep everything in one "frame" and build level editors and scripts for content creation. And like Annabelle pointed out, it's been done before and it's been done good.

a lot depends on the sort of game you have in mind. what sort of game do you have in mind to make?

Its a auto side-scrolling run & gun game. 2D with pixel art. The enemies will work off pre determined paths as opposed to AI. Kind of like a platformer-rail-shooter. I envision the pace of the game to be very quick, with lots of projectile dodging. Parallax Scrolling layers for the background.

For that kind of game, you'll be fine, regardless of what program you choose. Just go for the one you feel more comfortable working in.

And to address your original post:

I wouldn't go for Construct if I were you. I'm very excited about the project because it's basically a technologically superior version of MMF, with a vastly improved programming system, and without all the cumbersome legacy objects and other quirks that MMF has. But, as you mentioned, Construct is still in its infancy, and the Scirra team are still working on it. And it would suck to have your game be ruined by some stupid bug after working on it for several months. But then again, it was a while since I last used Construct so it might be more stable now than how I recall it.

As for MMF vs GM, they're both fine, you can't go wrong really. Some things to note though: GM has longer loading times, but has vastly superior 3D and vector graphics capabilities (the MMF dudes are still working on this). Neither has cross-platform support as of yet, but GM is being ported to Mac last time I checked, and a Java runtime for MMF is in the works as well. GM can be extended through the use of third-party DLLs, MMF has a similar extension system.

It really comes down to which program you're more comfortable with, and how much you're prepared to pay for it: GM costs $20, MMF is $100 for the Standard version and $300 for the Developer version (and believe me, you don't want Developer: It's the same as Standard except you get to sell your games without having to mention MMF somewhere in your game (I certainly wouldn't mind), and you get a bunch of useless extra features).

There is a free downloadable demo for each of these programs, both which are feature-complete, but don't allow you to "compile" your games. So the choice is yours. As I said, you can't go wrong, they're both great programs.

I hope this helps, good luck!

[Soulliard]

There is a free downloadable demo for each of these programs, both which are feature-complete, but don't allow you to "compile" your games.

You can compile games made with the free version of Game Maker. It comes with an annoying banner, though, and you miss out on a lot of very useful functions.

[Aaron P]

Thank you all for your replies! From what I gather here, GM appears to be capable of more graphically, alas with a bit longer loading times, while MMF2 caters more to the beginner without losing out too much feature wise. Construct could possibly be the best of all three, but it's current development status keeps it out of true contention as of now. So I guess it's a toss up between Game Maker and MMF2. And from what I've seen, a shitton of TIGers seem to be GMers. I'll just focus on trying tutorials between the two, and see what works best. Thanks alot everyone. 

P.S. if you had not yet responded to this post and have an opinion, please post! I am still looking for comparison between GM and MMF2 from others who have used both!

P.S. #2. Does anyone know of any complete games made in Construct?

[moi]

Jinky jonky requests a link to this construct gentle fellow 
Here, take some fairy dust...

[agj]

deadeye's This Cursed Rock, and his demo Little Hitler in Toyland, were made in Construct. Also, my own The Lake, but that one's hardly noteworthy, as it's not at all technically ambitious. I don't actually know of any other games, but I'm sure they're out there!

fake edit: Actually...

[moi]

I was looking for a link to the actual language.
Google doesn't help there.
 

[Manbabyoid]

moi: http://scirra.com/

AaronP: I'd recommend playing other people's GM/MMF2 creations, so you can get an idea of what they're capable of. TIGdb lets you search for games created with a specific engine/program/language, so that's always a good place to start:

TIGdb: Games created in GM
TIGdb: Games created in MMF2

[agj]

moi, sorry, your post was kind of not very clear. I was responding to the one right before yours.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

From what I know, GM had hardware acceleration whereas MMF2 doesn't. Which means transparencies and such will be slower in MMF2. I also don't know if MMF2 has a particle effects system, whereas GM does. So I'd recommend GM, unless MMF2 is just much easier for you to use or something.