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[csanyk]

Level 3-ish, apparently. I generally disagree with the notion of leveling up in a tool such as Game Maker by getting better at optimization, neat coding and effective structuring.

To me Game Maker is all about putting the application's abilities to good use (creatively) and easily being able to create a game that feels good to play and is nice to look at.

If judged by the scale of the article, then Blademasterbobo's suggestion for level 10 seems pretty reasonable.

in a similar vein, i've found that some of the best gm games ever were made by some of the worst coders ever. coding skill is not necessarily reflective of skill at game design

so if you want to get better at making games, trying to improve your coding is not actually going to help you all that much. for example, i believe hanako (of cute knight fame) still regularly uses "execute string" in her games, which is like anathema to a lot of gml coders

You're both quite right.  Game design and tool proficiency are two separate things entirely.  The article is only dealing with the programming side of the equation, which is why the article wasn't titled "Leveling up as a game designer" -- which would be an interesting future topic for the blog, I suppose.  But I might not be the best person to write that one ;-)

But... as long as you can, why not get better with the tools and learn how to get the most out of them?  I wrote the article as a retrospective of how I'd advanced in my skills and understanding of gamemaker development, and as a rough guide to help someone at "Level 0" have a little bit of a roadmap in front of them to give them clues about things they might want to learn about as they explore the tool and learn its features.  I struggled a lot through level 3 or 4, and had there been an article like this that I could have read back then, I might not have needed to.

[csanyk]

I've been using almost entirely execute code with scripts called from there.

@csanyk your position and motion tutorial was mega helpful btw, thanks for putting that up!

You're very welcome! 

Sadly, execute_code() is not supported in GM:Studio, because GML is no longer a scripted language.  It was such a powerful command, it really gave the language infinite flexibility.

[baconman]

  Level 5.5...

EDIT: But apparently I've skipped a few steps and have some piece of "Level 8" in there, too.

[GhostBomb]

level 4...ish?

I seem to have some qualifications in some higher levels but am missing some in lower levels.  I think this article is kind of silly because I'm sure most people progress very differently from others.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think the author mentioned that in the comments section there; that it's not intended to be taken literally and it's primarily a way to expose people to new ideas about how to improve their coding

[s0]

But... as long as you can, why not get better with the tools and learn how to get the most out of them?  I wrote the article as a retrospective of how I'd advanced in my skills and understanding of gamemaker development, and as a rough guide to help someone at "Level 0" have a little bit of a roadmap in front of them to give them clues about things they might want to learn about as they explore the tool and learn its features.  I struggled a lot through level 3 or 4, and had there been an article like this that I could have read back then, I might not have needed to.

yeah. also i found that a lot of this stuff just comes naturally or becomes necessary once you start making larger games.

i actually came to GM from "real programming" and i could write my own engine and etc. if i wanted but i'm not what i would call a good programmer and i'm still faster with GM, so why bother?

[Ant]

Yeah a lot of the article just seems to be about personal preferences really. The only reason I use both scripts and code blocks is because I just find it easier to organise and keep track of stuff that way, I never think oh this will save me 2 microseconds of compootin.

I'd say the real leveling is just learning how to do stuff and then do it in a more efficient way if there's big gains. Like finding out about with statements and then learning you could use 'other' to reference the calling object was a huge step up for me, I can't imagine making a game now without using with. Plus stuff like saving/loading/manipulating data via array for loops, INIs, even basic stuff like learning about random/choose was a big leap forward when I first started with GM.

would be nice if there was some sort of 'essential stuff to know' guide for GM newbs

[Dr. Cooldude]

Level 10 (According to Bobo's definition)

[moi]

I never used game maker, so I'm probably a wizard

[eyeliner]

Level: -1

[Toast]

It's kind of like being able to play a musical instrument without knowing music theory. In the same way you can make an awesome game in Game Maker and be a totally shit programmer.

If you want to gain a deeper understanding and be a more versatile game programmer you should learn the theory, but it doesn't mean you can't do meaningful things without that knowledge.

However, there are compositions in music which almost certainly couldn't have been composed without music theory and the same goes for games and programming them. You're limiting the way in which you can express yourself and whether that's ok or not is for you to decide.

[aberrantmind]

would be nice if there was some sort of 'essential stuff to know' guide for GM newbs

There really should be. there isn't a whole lot of good information for Game Maker on the internet. As a newb, so far I've only found something useful from two sources, Derek's tutorials on these forums, and csanyk's tutorials on his site. It's pretty difficult to find good info on the yoyoforums.

anyone else got any good links?

note that if your innards tell you to tell me to use google, please contain yourself.

[csanyk]

would be nice if there was some sort of 'essential stuff to know' guide for GM newbs

There really should be. there isn't a whole lot of good information for Game Maker on the internet. As a newb, so far I've only found something useful from two sources, Derek's tutorials on these forums, and csanyk's tutorials on his site. It's pretty difficult to find good info on the yoyoforums.

anyone else got any good links?

note that if your innards tell you to tell me to use google, please contain yourself.

I got started in GameMaker by The Game Maker's Apprentice, which is just what a "Level 0" GameMaker dev needs.  There's a sequel, The Game Maker's Companion, which is also very good.  And just published is HTML5 Game Development With GameMaker, by Jason Lee Elliott, which I had a hand in creating as a technical reviewer.

Once I got through that, I started my first project and just figured things out little by little, working each night, adding a new feature, or tweaking an existing one, and by building and playtesting I gradually figured out how GameMaker worked.  I read the helpfile a lot, guessing a term if I wasn't sure what I was looking for, and hunting until I found what I was looking for. 

I relied on myself to figure things out -- which is really the best way, since if you can do this, you can do anything.  I took an approach of doing a very small thing, running the game, seeing what happened, and then to the next very small thing, building up from very simple things that I could understand to more complex things that I could understand by the time I was done building, but couldn't have understood when I first started out.

I also browsed the GMC Forums a lot, and still do.  There is good content on there, but you have to know how to recognize it.  A lot of the time I'll see a good idea there that I wouldn't have had on my own, but I'll see ways to improve it.  Most code examples are not written the best.

I also read about general programming in other languages.  I attend various local meetups for IT professionals, and am always looking for insights that will help me improve my programming or my design abilities.

These days, the demo projects that come with GameMaker Studio are really pretty good starting points, too.  I think there were demo projects that came with earlier versions of GameMaker, too, but somehow, when I just starting out with GM8 I never looked at what came with it, and when I discovered the demo projects that now come with Studio, I wished I'd had something like what they now package to refer to.

[poe]

I never used game maker, so I'm probably a wizard

Level: 
Wizards describe themselves as mois in an effort to be perceived as smarter than they are.

[aberrantmind]

I got started in GameMaker by The Game Maker's Apprentice, which is just what a "Level 0" GameMaker dev needs.  There's a sequel, The Game Maker's Companion, which is also very good.  And just published is HTML5 Game Development With GameMaker, by Jason Lee Elliott, which I had a hand in creating as a technical reviewer.

Once I got through that, I started my first project and just figured things out little by little, working each night, adding a new feature, or tweaking an existing one, and by building and playtesting I gradually figured out how GameMaker worked.  I read the helpfile a lot, guessing a term if I wasn't sure what I was looking for, and hunting until I found what I was looking for. 

I relied on myself to figure things out -- which is really the best way, since if you can do this, you can do anything.  I took an approach of doing a very small thing, running the game, seeing what happened, and then to the next very small thing, building up from very simple things that I could understand to more complex things that I could understand by the time I was done building, but couldn't have understood when I first started out.

I also browsed the GMC Forums a lot, and still do.  There is good content on there, but you have to know how to recognize it.  A lot of the time I'll see a good idea there that I wouldn't have had on my own, but I'll see ways to improve it.  Most code examples are not written the best.

I also read about general programming in other languages.  I attend various local meetups for IT professionals, and am always looking for insights that will help me improve my programming or my design abilities.

These days, the demo projects that come with GameMaker Studio are really pretty good starting points, too.  I think there were demo projects that came with earlier versions of GameMaker, too, but somehow, when I just starting out with GM8 I never looked at what came with it, and when I discovered the demo projects that now come with Studio, I wished I'd had something like what they now package to refer to.

Righteous, thanks for the advice! I just started about two almost three months ago? Got into GM at first, couldn't progress much, so I started learning C#, went to C, then some python, and about a week in a half ago went back to GM and it was insane how much more understandable GML was once I learned some programming languages. I'll check out those demo projects as I skipped over those too. I'm on a bit of a budget so I probably won't be able to check out those books anytime soon unfortunately.

Currently my approach on how implement a game mechanic in GM has become think about it for a bit, draw out how I think it would work, if it doesn't work google to see what everyone else has done, if anything looks interesting try that, if all else fails give it a rest for a day move on to the next task, and then start the above process over from by commenting all the previous work so I can look at it anew without getting rid of the old code.

I should check out the actual yoyo forums more often. I usually end up there through google, I was going through the forums just a bit ago and it looks like a lot of the newer posts has some good info

[Superb Joe]

how do i learn

[ithamore]

Point, click, drag, copy, cut, paste and repeat as necessary. Then take two and call me in the morning.

Forgot syntax coding; but I always forget something.

[Superb Joe]

how do i find out how to talk to the computer, and what its secret list of words is

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

how do i find out how to talk to the computer, and what its secret list of words is

[Superb Joe]

programming is basically like being fucked in an electro bdsm dungeon that plays canon.mid and you havent been told the safe word so you try to guess it for 10 years