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Getting Started with 2D Game Development Using GameMaker

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Anyone who knows me personally or follows me on Twitter knows that I’m a huge gamer. The problem is that between work, community events, social life, my wife and twin babies, I virtually have no time to play games. I now game vicariously through occasional mobile games, listening to gaming podcasts when I drive, and buying games I’ll probably never have time to play. I have over 20 MMOs installed on my home rig, and I’m addicted to Steam sales (I even have the 250+ badge on Steam).

The cool thing is that Steam started selling software a while back and during one such Steam sale over the holidays, I snagged a copy of GameMaker: Professional for only $25 (that’s 75% off). I decided to take it for a spin (thanks to my colleagues Joe Healy and Daniel Egan for the push). I’m no game development expert. I’m more of a game development enthusiast. I’m also learning Unity on the side, and my game development background is with XNA – a topic I have covered at many conferences and user groups over the last 7 years.

Game development has to be one of the most rewarding forms of software development. You’re basically using your programming skills to make something fun! But game development is also not for the faint of heart as it can truly test your programming skills, knowledge of math, creative juices, imagination and patience. Fortunately, there are cool game engines and IDEs like GameMaker to simplify our lives as we seek to produce fun games in less time.

What is GameMaker?

As its name implies, GameMaker is a game development environment and engine produced by YoYo Games that lets you design and build cross-platform games for desktop computers, the Web, mobile phones and tablets.

How much does GameMaker cost?

GameMaker: Studio starts out free with the Standard edition. You can download it here from YoYo Games. There used to be 4 editions of GameMaker, where the free edition was limited in the number of resources you could use in your game projects (which translates in the complexity of the game you can build). The free version now has unlimited resources, and that is great news. In terms of support platforms for your games, the free Studio edition used to support Windows Desktop, Mac OS X and Windows Apps (i.e. Windows Store apps on 8.x). Now the free version only supports Windows Desktop.

This means you can start building Windows games for free and anyone with a standard Windows 7 or 8 computer can play your game from the desktop. Distribution won’t be easy though. Publishing to Steam is not that easy and self-publishing outside of public stores can be frustrating. You’ll probably want to publish it to the Windows Store. For that you need to upgrade to the Professional edition for $100. There are other features you will get in the Professional edition, such as texture management, multiple configurations, mobile testing and more. It’s a great bargain and if you already work as a professional developer during the day, surely you can afford a $100 tool.

Important Note: YoYo Games is currently running a Summer sale at the time of this writing. You can get GameMaker Studio Professional for a mere $60. That’s the cost of a single console video game. I strongly encourage you to take advantage of this deal. Other deals have been announced on the other modules. Read more about the sale here .

Beyond Windows Desktop and Windows Store, GameMaker also support additional mobile platforms, but you’ll have to first upgrade to the professional edition, and then buy these modules separately:

  • Windows Phone 8
  • iOS
  • Android
  • Web / HTML5
  • Mac OS X

And quite a few other platform exports are supported too. The following table shows the three editions of GameMaker, their respective features and add-ons. More details on the YoYo Game website here.

Continue reading "Getting Started with 2D Game Development Using GameMaker" at Age of Mobility here.