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[Rob Lach]

I'm sure I'm reiterating stuff that has been said already, but the way I see it, if your idea can be made exactly how you want in something like game maker, why not? Doing it another would yield pretty much the same results and take longer.

The main issue isn't if game maker is a viable platform for programming games, because it obviously is, but if your game is possible within the restrictions of game maker. The hardest part is predicting if game maker would be too restrictive, and most people can't or won't make the decision so they go with something more open such as C/C++ which is low-level enough to not be restrictive but high-level enough to be able to create something fairly quickly.

[wire]

Yea, there are some pretty amazing Game Maker games. I also think that GML is a great kick off coding language, just to get the feel of things.

[GregWS]

Wow, and I'd been avoiding this thread because I expected a lot of that "let's all look down on GM because we're real programmers" crap.

You've all made my day, especially the programmers. 

See, as an architecture student I have to put up with the equally annoying "SketchUp is crap, you can't do anything good in SketchUp, real 3D modeling is done in Rhino or FormZ."  And this comes from both profs and students.

Just like with GM, it's easy to do stuff in SketchUp, and thus it's easy to make crap, and many students do.  But that's not the program's fault, that's the student's fault for not using it right and making something amazing with it.

...sorry, venting feels good, and hating on software that makes life easier really pisses me off.

[salade]

hey, I have a dissenting opinion!

well, kind of...

don't get me wrong, I think GM is a wonderful GAME MAKING tool. it's straight forward, and it is intuitive when it comes to game making, no doubt. but a viable PROGRAMMING tool?
it all depends on how you view viable. as an indie, using an intuitive tool to get your games out is viable. it is very viable. but, let's say you were a software engineer, making some sort of graphics program that has been commissioned by an art company, or whatever(i'm not really sure what software engineers do). i'm pretty sure it would not be viable to use GM.

anyway, this is more a response to the post title. in your first post, and the rest of the thread, game maker is really only referred to as a game making tool, which it excels at.

of course then there's all that non-cross-platform and speed hoo-ha with game maker, but meh. people have gotten around the speed, and they're fixing the cross platform issues.

[Mipe]

Game development, yes. You build games with it.
Programming, no. Programming is actual coding with actual programming language.

There is a difference. Don't claim you are a programmer if you've just click&dragged stuff into a functional game; you can claim that you developed the game, though.

(Disclaimer: I'm no programmer myself, I just know my limits and stay away from fallacies like this that may shatter my ego someday. _{It be so fragile... the ego that is}.)

[GregWS]

As long as you use GML you're totally within the bounds of calling yourself a scripter though.

That's what I say whenever it comes up; I can script, but I can't program.

[TeeGee]

Yeah, same here. And scripting is a valuable skill if you seek a job in the industry.

By the way - I use Game Maker a lot in my job (outside of my indie stuff, I work as a game designer in a small studio). It's a wonderful tool for rapid prototyping or making animated mockups.
For example - instead of just showing the artist a concept art of the location and trying to describe what will happen there, I can just script it all in Game Maker within 20 minutes and show how it's actually gonna look.
Then the artist can just replace the conceptual arts with his final assets and immediatelly see if it works. And later, the programmer can use it as a benchmark for implementing that location, without me standing over his shoulder and explaining what goes where. It really helps a lot.

[ChevyRay]

By the way - I use Game Maker a lot in my job (outside of my indie stuff, I work as a game designer in a small studio). It's a wonderful tool for rapid prototyping or making animated mockups.

A friend of mine is a commercial game designer and he does this as well. I'll probably continue to use it for prototyping long after I've moved on to other means of development.

[UtopianGames]

We made Bumps with gm6.1 SE (vista compatable) using GMPhysics v4 and Bumps has just landed a worldwide publishing deal along with a distribution deal on all the major portals like BFGs, Reflexive and real arcade so a short answer is yes.

Darren.

www.utopiangames.co.uk