The music is one of the best parts. I was amazed at how well it fit the mood of the game.

Wario Land is one of the game's biggest influences. In a way, this game is a tribute to them, since they were some of my favorite games growing up. Surprisingly, there aren't many other no-health platformers out there.

10 friends is actually quite good. Finding all 20 in a single playthrough is a real challenge.

The pink dude is so angry! I'll play this soon!

You'd be angry, too, if you were an enemy who couldn't even kill the main character.

Awesome game!  Really enjoyed the variety of environments.  All of the graphics were very charming.

Thanks! I had a lot of fun practicing my pixeling.

[Trailer]

This is the first game I've released in quite some time, and I think it's my my best work yet. I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed making it.



Trailer

Site and Download Links

The goal of The Ultimate Celebration is to find all your friends so you can invite them to a party. There is no death in the game. There are obstacles, but they only temporarily hinder you.

The heart of the experience is exploring the miniature world that the game takes place in. The different locations can be explored in any order, but you will need to navigate them all to find every friend.

After you beat the game once, you can challenge yourself by playing again and seeing how quickly you can reach the end. The game was designed for speed-running.

Features music by Filippo Beck Peccoz.

I don't care for cover-based shooters. So I played a Vanguard and abused the pause screen to aim my weapons. Basically, I turned the game into a strange sort of turn-based brawler. I've never played GoW, but I assume it doesn't allow for these sorts of non-traditional strategies. So that's one point in ME2's favor, I guess...

Final Draft:

Not only will you become a better programmer, and as astonishing as it may sound it does matter, and not only is there more power and flexibility available, but learning new languages is an endlessly fascinating pursuit all its own and anyone who doesn't expand their horizons in that regard may be able to produce the best bullet hell shooters ever but they are missing out on all that heavenly glory...

I'd love to be known for making the best bullet hell shooters in the world. My name being synonymous with an entire subgenre... that'd be awesome. It would be quite profitable, too, judging by the success of the Touhou project. I'd gladly trade my knowledge of C++ for that.

I don't think the average gamer even knows what Game Maker is, and even if they do, they probably couldn't recognize a game made with it. The only people who will have a stigma against it are 1337 programmers, and they aren't an especially large demographic. Unless your game is marketed specifically to programmers, I don't see how a GM game would be viewed as illegitimate by the public.

But then I don't just want to be making games, I want to be getting better and better as a programmer.  I study constantly.

This is an important point. It comes down to what is more important to you, becoming a better programmer or making better games.

If you want to improve your programming skills, and work as a programmer on a game designed by someone else, taking the time to use C++ is a very good idea.

If, on the other hand, you want to design games yourself, you'll grow more quickly as a designer if you can make games quickly in GM (or another tool).

Of course, this is a generalization, and the needs of the project should be the biggest factor in deciding how the game is coded.

If the end stage in GM and C++ are so similar in your opinion, and since rendering and collision detection are so simple, why not standardize on something more flexible that will afford you utility elsewhere, like tool programming, networking, back-end / server programming, OpenGL graphics and shader programming, nontrivial procedural map generation, nontrivial physics simulation, etc?

Because not every game I make requires networking, back-end/server programming, OpenGL graphics and shader programming, nontrivial procedural map generation, or nontrivial physics simulation*. For projects that don't require those things, I can finish the game in half the time with GM. Like I said in the above post.

How many products are on the shelves right now that were written in Gamemaker?

See this thread. A few more commercial games have been made since then, including several of Vlambeer's games (Serious Sam: The Random Encounter is made in GM, and Radical Fishing and Super Crate Box have mobile ports).

But since both are "so simple," why not work with something that offers infinite possibilities?

You only need to write collision detection and rendering libraries or wrappers once, for the level of games that Gamemaker is capable of.  And since they're so simple, why not just do that?

I used "simple" to mean "basic" or "fundamental", not "easy to implement". They are, in fact, quite easy to implement in Game Maker compared to C++.


*Game Maker actually can handle many of these things, although it won't necessarily be ideal for them.

That's a great way of explaining it, Dragonmaw. The high level logic of a GM game and a game coded in C++ aren't very different. The biggest difference is that, with GM, I don't need to worry so much about simple things like rendering and collision detection. It's a huge time saver, which lets me spend more time actually making the game fun.

And yeah, please stop assuming that if someone uses GM, it's because they can't program. Like I said, I could make all my games in C++ if I wanted, but I generally choose not to.

Jasmine, you don't address people who already know other programming languages, but still choose to use Game Maker. I could make all of my games in C++/OpenGL if I wanted, but many times I'll still use GM, since I can make the game in half the time. If I can get the game to a playable state earlier, then that gives me more time to iterate and improve the game. There's also a much better chance of releasing the game at all.

I won't use GM for every game I make, because I recognize the its weaknesses. But I can also recognize when its weaknesses aren't relevant. For certain games, GM is the ideal creation tool.

I worked on Navigating Nirvana. It turned out to be pretty interesting.

IT BEGINS (in Rochester)

Of the things I've said in this thread, what bothered you the most?

For me, it was the implication that if you weren't at GDC (and, by extension, if you weren't successful), it was due to some personal failing.

It gave me the same vibes as people who complain about food stamps, because "Why don't they just get a job?" It's a lack of understanding or empathy for the circumstances some people have to deal with.

I know you're not a bad guy, but if I was judging you by this thread alone, I would picture you in my mind as one of the snooty private school kids that the protagonists defeat in an inspirational sports movie.

I don't get all the IGF hate. Of course, connections matter, but that's true of any business. For what it is, I think the competition is run well, and gives the majority of the games a fair shake.

But comments like this are incredibly ignorant:

If you can't pull off GDC you simply don't care enough to make it happen.

Plane tickets alone can represent several months' income for some folks. Not everyone can cut $1000 and change from their budget. What do you expect them to go without so they can pay for GDC? Heat? Proper nutrition? A vehicle? A decent work computer? Health insurance?

Apologies if this has already been brought up, but does the existence of VVVVVV 3DS kill the chance of Viridian showing up, since Nicalis is the publisher?

It depends on the details of the publishing agreement. I'm guessing that Terry kept the rights to his game, so it may not make a difference.

That's no good. I have all the music files, so I'll upload them soon. Is there a specific song you wanted to download?

Think of how the typical gamer would receive your name and is it easily rememberable.  Then think about how it would look in a logo to be visually recognizable.  Tackle those two hurdles when selecting a name and I think you should have something you can be proud of.

I think it will pass both of those tests.

(BTW, everyone will consistently misspell DESSERT DESERT which would make finding you in a search engine difficult.)

I thought of that, too. It should be obvious that it's misspelled once you see the results, though.

Aw, I like Clangbolt. It has a weighty sound.

"Digital Dessert"

I like the alliteration, and it has a positive connotation. Doesn't look like the name's currently being used for anything. Should I use it?